





I III I 





Glass 

Book 



/i 



Copyright N?._ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Life's Response to Consciousness 



LIFE'S RESPONSE 

TO 

CONSCIOUSNESS 



By 
MIRIAM I. WYLIE 



New York 
Desmond FitzGerald, Inc. 



BF3H 



Copyright, 1912 
By Desmond Fitzgerald, Inc. 

All Rights Reserved 



$ /• 



©CLA312244 



PREFACE 

The object of the following pages is to 
give a reasonable explanation of some of 
the problems of life, and to explain how, 
by an understanding of the law that under- 
lies response to both vibration and to con- 
sciousness, we may more intelligently cope 
with conditions. 

Philosophy and religion have revealed to 
both Occident and Orient the omnipresent 
life and knowledge, with the power to ex- 
press itself in a material universe, but it 
has been left to science to explain how a 
mental attitude can produce a material 
phenomenon. 

If we are to use thought power to any 
permanent advantage we must under- 
stand the interpenetration of mind and 
what is called matter, and we must under- 
stand that matter is life in a less evolved 



Preface 

form, but a life that can and does respond 
to a dominant vibration. 

The Law of Continuity is a valuable help 
in studying the universe, and as man is a 
part of the universe, he may study himself 
as scientifically as he would any other ex- 
pression of the universal life. He can learn 
to know himself in relation to the universal 
Mind, and he may continue the workings 
of that same law into the study of the cells 
that make his body, and learn their relation 
to his individual mind. 

If an understanding of these added re- 
sponsibilities should give a new impetus to 
life, and make its possibilities a joy, the 
purpose of this message will have been ful- 
filled. 

Miriam Isbel Wylie. 

Mill Valley, Cal., July 24, 1911. 



vi 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Universal Life and Mind i 
II. The Individual Life and Mind 25 



III. The Mental Realm 

IV. Dynamics of Thought 

V. The Cells of the Body . 

VI. Cells; Grouping and Action 

VII. Nerve Currents 

VIII. Suggestion; Suggestibility 

IX. Suggestion Applied . 



48 

75 
101 
119 
140 
160 
182 



Life's Response to Consciousness 



LIFE'S RESPONSE TO CON- 
SCIOUSNESS 

CHAPTER I 

THE UNIVERSAL LIFE AND MIND 

Since the dawn of history men have 
fought and died for truth, and yet, in the 
twentieth century, we are in doubt of what 
truth is. The principal reason for so much 
confusion is the lack of discrimination 
between Absolute truth and relative 
truth. 

Absolute truth belongs to the realm of 
the Infinite, and not to the mind of man. 
The Infinite and all that it expresses is not 
under the law of causation; it is the Cause 
itself, and not the effect of a cause. The 
effort to understand is an effort of the mind, 
and the mind works in sequences, recogniz- 

I 



Life's Response 

ing always an interdependence between the 
present and the past, and between the pres- 
ent and the future. It is this endless chain 
of cause and effect that is the material the 
mind works with, and the conclusions ar- 
rived at by reason are what we call knowl- 
edge. 

As Absolute truth is beyond knowledge, 
it is relative truth humanity has to deal 
with, and here, again, is confusion. Truth 
has been so long objectified that it is thought 
of as something tangible, and man seeks 
it as a treasure outside himself. 

Relative " truth is not an entity inclosed 
in nature, to be drawn from its conceal- 
ment by the wise, the privileged, or the cun- 
ning. Man's apprehension of truth is not 
constant; it ever changes with man's ad- 
vance in knowledge. Hence, truth is not 
something that exists outside of man, an 
objective entity which he may somewhere 
seek, but its apprehension is an inward ex- 
perience, dependent on his relation to the 
world. Truth is not a thing in nature, but 
merely an experience in man. Therefore, 

2 



To Consciousness 

one man's truth is not necessarily another's 
also." * 

This is the twentieth-century idea of 
truth, the idea of the pragmatist, who sep- 
arates facts from truth, and says : " Truth 
happens to an idea. Ideas that tell us what 
to expect are true ideas. Facts themselves 
are not true; they simply ARE. Truth is 
what we say about them. Our obligation 
to seek truth is part of our general obliga- 
tion to do what pays. Truth makes no 
other kind of claim, and imposes no other 
kind of ought than health and wealth do. 
The concrete benefits we gain are what we 
mean by calling the pursuit a duty." 2 

If there are any concrete benefits to be 
derived from the pursuit of truth, then 
man were wise to seek until he finds. The 
progress of the race depends on the in- 
dividual. First, there are the few who are 
foremost in every new movement, men and 
women who, because of special education 
in certain directions, are fitted to call atten- 

1 Henry Frank, " Dawn of Reason.' ' 

2 William James, "Pragmatism." 

3 



Life's Response 

tion to new methods and to better results; 
and, second, those who are open to new 
views. The few who refuse to learn are 
left behind in the advancing civilization. 
They go to sleep, as did Rip Van Winkle, 
and wake to find that the facts of life have 
not changed, but that man has a new view- 
point, and is adapting himself to the larger 
prospectus. 

Truths come to man in two ways, through 
experience and through revelation. 

Facts are everywhere. When man comes 
into touch with a fact he has an experi- 
ence, and that experience gives him a little 
knowledge. He now has something to say 
about the fact, but it is only in relation to 
his meager acquaintance with it. As he in- 
vestigates further, however, his views en- 
large, and he has more and more to say. 
The relation has grown more intimate, not 
through any variation in the fact, but be- 
cause of an added experience in the man. 
This experience is knowledge, because it is 
something limited by the mind. 

Truth that comes through revelation is 

4 



To Consciousness 

not knowledge until it has been experienced. 
No man can say he knows that which is out- 
side himself; he may say he believes, and 
that belief may become knowledge in time 
through an experience, but so long as he be- 
lieves because someone has said so, he is 
ignorant. 

Belief bears a very important part in the 
evolution of knowledge, nevertheless. 

Every race and civilization has had in- 
spired teachers, who revealed truths that 
were far in advance of the people. These 
truths have been accepted and believed, and 
the belief has induced investigation, with 
the result that science has often been able, 
through experiments, to make the inspired 
truth a matter very close to experience. 

There are many Scriptures, each im- 
portant in its ethical and spiritual teachings. 
The inspired truths of these different revela- 
tions do not contradict each other on vital 
points. Necessarily each presents the truth 
in the way best suited to the race to whom 
it is given, for revealed truth, to be practical, 
must not be too far in advance of man's ex- 



Life's Response 

perience, but such truths as are common to 
humanity at large are emphasized by- 
each. 

The Bible is a revelation to the Christian. 
The prophets and seers were men of an ad- 
vanced type, and their knowledge of facts 
was revealed to the race and became ideals. 
That this ideal did not antagonize the ideals 
of the other great religions is evidenced by 
the record that the first to bow the knee 
to the Christ were the wise men of the East, 
men of a foreign civilization and of another 
religion. 

The Bible tells us of God, who is om- 
nipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. This 
in no way contradicts Brahmanism, whose 
word for God is " OM," meaning the mani- 
fested and the unmanifested. It does not 
contradict Zoroastrianism, for the inspired 
teacher of that race taught that everywhere 
were knowledge, and presence, and power; 
that, in all parts of the universe, living in- 
telligences were working in the great world 
process. Buddhism also recognizes the 
" world below with its spirits, the world 
6 



To Consciousness 

above," and all creatures, from God to men, 
living and acting always and everywhere. 

This teaching is the teaching that God is 
the ever-present life, and that there is no 
place where He is not. It is a revelation 
to all races, and to all civilizations. The 
belief with which it is subscribed to varies 
from the blind acceptance, which does not 
question, but lays it aside as one of the im- 
penetrable mysteries, to that quality of be- 
lief which investigates, or if unable to in- 
vestigate, carefully studies the experiments 
of men of science and learns how much of 
the teaching can be verified. 

Greek philosophers not only believed in 
the ever-present life, but did not hesitate to 
take the consequence of such an inclusive 
idea. Paracelsus stated, without reserva- 
tion, that everything in the universe is liv- 
ing and " therefore the whole world is a 
living organism." Here was a wonderful 
effort of the mind to put an Abstract idea 
into concrete form, but the teaching has 
been severely dealt with by the Christian 
church, and now is little known. The rea- 

7 



Life's Response 

son of this disapproval is mainly that Pan- 
theism is thought to teach the degenera- 
tion of the Absolute into a material uni- 
verse, when, on the contrary, it was rooting 
the universe in the Absolute, which is a very 
different thing. 

Preceding Paracelsus were the Hindoo 
sages, whose depth of thought we are only 
beginning to appreciate. Their philosophy 
goes back and back, into a past so remote 
that there are no reliable dates, and the 
authors were personalities whose names 
have long been forgotten. 

Gems from these old works have been 
gathered in late years, and translated by 
European authorities, such as Dr. L. H. 
Mills, Dr. Haug, Max Miiller, and others. 
The teachings of the Theosophical Society 
and of Vedanta have simplified and made 
popular the universal truth until our own 
Scriptures have grown in meaning and 
beauty, as they are seen to be a part of the 
revelation given to the whole world of God's 
presence, power, and knowledge. 

A quotation from the " Secret Doctrine " 
8 



To Consciousness 

will best express what it means to say, God 
is life, and to what it commits us if we 
believe in the omnipresence : " A funda- 
mental law of Eastern Philosophy is, There 
is no miracle. Everything is the result of 
law. . . . The expression, inorganic sub- 
stance, means only that the latent life slum- 
bering in the molecules of so-called inert 
matter is incognizable. All is life, and 
every atom of even mineral dust is a life, 
though beyond our comprehension. . . . 
Like produces like. Absolute life cannot 
produce a lifeless atom, whether simple or 
complex, and there is a life in the neutral 
state, just as a man in a cataleptic state, to 
all appearances dead, is still a living being. 
. . . Esoteric philosophy teaches that 
everything lives and is conscious, but not 
that all life and consciousness are the same, 
even in human beings and animals. Life 
we look upon as the one form of existence 
manifesting in what is called matter. . . . 
The atom is not a particle of something, ani- 
mated by a psychic something, destined after 
aeons to blossom as a man, but it is a con- 



Life's Response 

crete manifestation of the Universal energy 
which itself has not been individualized. " * 

This is the belief of a vast proportion of 
the world's people to-day, the belief that 
God is really everywhere. That the life 
principle is expressed even in the atom of 
mineral dust, and the Universal law is seen 
at work which forbids Absolute Life from 
producing the lifeless atom. 

Living atoms and a living Universe! If 
the one is true, the other must be, also. A 
live organism cannot be composed of dead 
units, neither could live units compose a 
dead organism. If the Universe is alive, it 
must also be conscious, and act with in- 
telligence. 

One more quotation, to understand how 
the Universe can act, and its relation to the 
Absolute: "The Universe is worked and 
guided from within outward. Man is the 
living witness of this Universal law, and the 
mode of its action. We see that every ex- 
ternal motion, act, gesture, whether volun- 

*H. P. Blavatsky, " The Secret Doctrine." 
IO 



To Consciousness 

tary or mechanical, organic or mental, is 
produced or preceded by internal feeling or 
emotion, will or volition, and thought or 
mind. As no outward motion or change, 
when normal in man's external body, can 
take place unless provoked by an inward im- 
pulse, given through one of the three func- 
tions named — emotion, volition, thought — 
so with the external or manifested Uni- 
verse." * 

This reasoning, dependent on man being 
the living witness to an Universal law, is not 
peculiar to Eastern teaching. Our own sci- 
entists recognize the Universe as harmony, 
and illustrate one part by another. The 
studying of grouped manifestations and 
placing them in special sciences is simply 
for convenience. The laws of biology and 
the laws of chemistry are not peculiar to 
biology and to chemistry; they are the same 
laws appropriated to different lines of in- 
vestigation, and are arbitrary methods for 
the better study of evolution. Having 

a H. P. Blavatsky, " The Secret Doctrine." 
II 



Life's Response 

found evolution resulting from a mode of 
energy in so many of the grouped sciences, 
it is inferred that it is an Universal mani- 
festation of energy, and to study the little 
universe of which we are a part, these laws 
must be converged, else each would be a 
separate manifestation. This converging 
of laws resulted in the grouping of the many 
into one law, which the Egyptians call the 
" Hermetic law," and the scientist of to- 
day, more often, the Law of Continuity. 

Newman Smith, seeing the vast im- 
portance of this law, says : " Continuity is 
the expression of the Divine Veracity in 
Nature," so, when man is called " the liv- 
ing witness of the Universal law," it is 
a method of observation and of thought 
that is being used by thinkers everywhere. 

While philosophers were studying the 
truth about life, physiologists and biolo- 
gists were busy investigating the facts of 
life. 

From the time of Plato to 1833, when the 
microscope was brought into use, there was 
little of what we to-day would call science, 
12 



To Consciousness 

most of the conclusions arrived at being 
speculative, but when the microscope re- 
vealed the cells as the material from which 
the body was built, then physiology, biology, 
and microscopy became sciences, and in- 
vestigations were made that added greatly 
to our belief in the revealed teachings. 

In the last century many of the observers, 
studying life from either the standpoint of 
spirit or matter, agreed on the lack of a 
definite separation between the animate and 
the inanimate. To Herbert Spencer the 
manifestation was one of degree, to Haeckel 
there was no difference. Either view links 
Eastern thought to Western, in the mutual 
effort to learn more of life, and what it 
means to live. 

Psychologists have become interested in 
the dual aspect of life; life the outward ex- 
pression, and consciousness the inward 
awareness. Professor James Mark Bald- 
win of this country has been a close stu- 
dent of the mental development in the child, 
and he argues with great force that con- 
sciousness is inseparable from life, and that 

13 



Life's Response 

the lowest manifestation of life has its cor- 
respondent of consciousness. Professor 
Jargadish Chandra Bose of Calcutta has 
studied lower forms of life, and, as the re- 
sult of many interesting experiments, has 
reached a similar conclusion of an ever-pres- 
ent life and consciousness. 

These two men, one of America and the 
other of India, do not stand alone; they are 
recognized authority by the world, and bi- 
ologists generally agree with them that the 
pleasure-pain consciousness, with its phys- 
ical basis, originates in the primitive organ- 
ism, and is not a psychic condition acquired 
by the more evolved life. 

Turning now from generalities to a more 
systematized investigation of life itself, it 
is necessary to have an accredited defini- 
tion of life, and I know of none more com- 
monly accepted than Herbert Spencer's fa- 
mous " Perfect correspondence would be 
perfect life. ,, There is perfect harmony be- 
tween this conception and that of the East, 
which defines life as the " internal response 
to an external stimulus,' ' or, less briefly, as, 
14 



To Consciousness 

the " ability of the organism to respond to 
external stimuli. " 1 

The ability of an organism to correspond 
to its environment depends entirely on its 
awareness of the changes that must be met, 
and awareness is only another name for 
consciousness. If life is to adapt itself 
to an environment, there must be conscious- 
ness inherent in the life, and consciousness 
and life must be embodied by form to make 
an organism that can correspond, so life is 
an inseparable duality incased in form for 
manifestation. The evolution of the form 
is entirely dependent on the unfoldment of 
the consciousness, and the quick response of 
the self-conscious man to stimuli has evolved 
a form that can adapt itself to changing 
conditions, while the consciousness that lies 
dormant in the rock is comparatively passive 
to the slow changes of the universal environ- 
ment. 

Life, consciousness, and form are self- 
evident in the two higher kingdoms of Na- 

1 J. C. Bose, " Response in the Living and Non- 
Li ving." 

is 



Life's Response 

ture, the human and the animal. Life and 
form are self-evident in the vegetable king- 
dom also, but many experiments were made 
before consciousness was determined. 

Professor Bose first discovered the 
nervous organism of plants. Physiologists 
had long recognized the evidence of sensa- 
tion in plants, but had attributed it to a 
lack of balance of water in their tissue. 
Dr. Bose does not think this lack of balance 
sufficiently accounts for the phenomena. 
He regards plants as capable of a delicate 
response to external stimuli, and with the 
power of holding back part of the energy 
resulting from the stimuli. He explains 
that the external stimulus induces contrac- 
tion, and the internal energy expansion, and 
that it is the interaction of the expansion 
and the contraction that accounts for the 
phenomena characteristic of life. 

In the scientific notes of the Pall Mall 
Gazette (January, 1908), the writer says: 
"The phrase (vegetable nerves) will not 
seem so preposterous to those who are aware 
of the recent trend of physiological botany, 
16 



To Consciousness 

the discovery even of certain special sense 
organs, such as the photo-sensitive struc- 
tures which are now called ocelli, or little 
eyes." Disease has attacked these " little 
eyes " to such an extent that the Forest 
Department of Russia is experimenting in 
the giving of medicine to trees. As Dr. 
Bose has demonstrated the responsive ac- 
tion of plants to stimulus, and calls atten- 
tion to the similar response in animal and 
man, as shown by the pneumographic trac- 
ings, 1 there is hope that some remedy may 
be found for the ills of plant life. 

That same year Professor George Howard 
Darwin, Professor of Astronomy at Cam- 
bridge, asserted, in an address at Dublin, 
that plants have consciousness, have mem- 
ory, and develop habits. A few days later 
the Associated Press tells us that Professor 
Darwin has been elected President of the 
British Association and that, in a recent 
speech, he defended his belief that plants 
have minds and are intelligent. Professor 

1 J, C. Bose, " Comparative Electro-Physiology." 

17 



Life's Response 

Wager, one of the most famous botanists of 
Great Britain, agrees with Darwin, and 
proves that plants can see as well as think, 
for he exhibited photographs, taken 
through a lens formed by the eyes of plants. 
" He showed that the outer skins of many 
leaves are lenses, much like the eyes of 
many insects, and capable of forming clear 
images of surrounding objects," and he ex- 
hibited photographs of Darwin and Hux- 
ley, and even colored pictures, taken by 
means of these lenses. Not only do these 
plant eyes see, but, according to Professor 
Wager, " the rays of light which by means 
of them are focused on the interior of the 
leaf, are carried to the brain of the plant, 
and affect its subsequent movements." 
Thousands of these little eyes can be seen 
under the microscope, and it is because of 
them that the leaf is able to distinguish be- 
tween darkness and light, and to turn toward 
the light. 

If the ocelli, or little eyes, of the plant 
see, and if there are other sense organs, and 
a system of vegetable nerves, as affirmed by 
18 



To Consciousness 

the physiological botanist, there is present 
the mechanism of consciousness, and as the 
external stimuli of light carried by these 
sense organs to the brain are found to af- 
fect its subsequent movements, there can 
be no question of an internal response to 
an external stimulus. 

In the mineral kingdom, science is con- 
fronted with the necessity of proving both 
life and consciousness, if revelation is to 
pass from belief to knowledge. This has 
been most ably done by the eminent Hindoo 
physiologist before mentioned, Professor 
Bose of the Presidency College of Calcutta. 

In 1 90 1, in a paper read at the Royal In- 
stitute, he proves that so-called inorganic 
matter answers to the definition of life, in 
that it responds to the electric current in 
exactly the same curves as do vegetables, 
animals, and man. In his experiments he 
used an instrument especially adapted to 
measure the stimuli applied, and to show in 
curves the response from metal. These 
tracings show that metals are not different 
from organic tissue, that they respond, not 

19 



Life's Response 

only to the stimulation, but that continued 
stimulation induces fatigue; that poisons 
affect the response, and that recovery is pos- 
sible if an antidote is given in time. He 
says : " Just as the response of animal tissue 
is exalted by stimulants, lowered by de- 
pressants, and abolished by poisons, so, also, 
we have found the response in plants and 
metals undergoing similar exaltation, de- 
pression, or abolition, . . . Just as ani- 
mal tissue passes from a state of responsive- 
ness while living, to a state of ir responsive- 
ness when killed by poisons, so, also, we find 
metals transformed from a responsive to an 
irresponsive condition by the action of sim- 
ilar poisonous reagents. The parallel is 
the more striking, since it has long been 
known with regard to animal tissue that the 
same drug administered in large or small 
doses might have opposite effects, and in 
preceding chapters we have seen that the 
same statements hold good of plants and 
metals also." * 

1 J. C. Bose, li Response in the Living and Non- 
Living. " 

20 



To Consciousness 

A writer in the Lancet (London) calls 
attention to the spontaneous change that ap- 
pears in inorganic material, as well as that 
in organized entities. If tin is exposed to a 
temperature of i6°-45° C. for two years, the 
smooth surface becomes brittle and crystal- 
line. Healthy masses of tin, when inocu- 
ulated with small portions of the crystalline 
metal, are infected, and the disease spreads, 
" the area affected increasing in diameter 
from three to five millimeters daily." Iron 
and steel rails snap when attacked by this 
" crystallizing disease. ... It would even 
appear that certain metals have their ill- 
nesses, as though their activities were inter- 
fered with by a toxic process which may be 
pushed in many cases to such an extent that 
the metal ' dies/ Platinum, for example, 
in its colloidal form, in which it is remark- 
ably active, is positively ' poisoned ' by 
prussic acid or corrosive sublimate, and its 
great energies cease to act; it is killed." 

In no kingdom does death mean annihila- 
tion. Disease is a loss of activity. It is 
the weakening of attraction that holds cell 

21 



Life's Response 

to cell, and death is the final break. This 
separation of the units that we call death, is 
the death of the organism, the form. Evad- 
ing attraction, they come under the other 
aspect of the same law, and repel each other. 
The units are still alive in all their spon- 
taneity, and, when liberated from their tem- 
porary association, they combine in new 
ways and form new organisms. 

Reason tells us that life and consciousness 
must be embodied in every case for mani- 
festation, and that the greater the unfold- 
ment of consciousness, the higher the form; 
therefore, we may think of consciousness as 
progressive, and classify it as: incipient in 
the mineral, semi-conscious in the plant, con- 
scious in the animal, and self-conscious in 
man. 

Beyond the limits of mind and its reason- 
ing faculties, man, in his present conscious- 
ness, cannot go. In a dim way he can un- 
derstand life as antedating mind, for he 
knows that wherever his thought is, he is 
present as thinker, and he cannot doubt that 
his mental activity is dependent on his own 

22 



To Consciousness 

life and consciousness, so, while there is no 
physical manifestation that has not pro- 
ceeded from mind, still, mind cannot be 
the first cause, for mind and thought, even 
in the human evolution, is under the con- 
trol of the Self to a greater or less degree. 
Man, created in the image of God, bears no 
different relation to his mind than God does 
to the Universal Mind. 

Thus we are forced to conclude that God 
is greater than mind, just as we are positive 
that man is greater than mind. The Un- 
manifested First Cause is an Absolute ideal 
that is beyond the comprehension of human 
intelligence, but the manifestation of that 
First Cause on a plane of matter where the 
Substance can become manifest, is an act we 
can dimly apprehend through the acceptance 
of the Law of Continuity. Remember how 
man expresses an idea through the power of 
action, and because of the power of knowl- 
edge. We have no power to create other 
than the Universal power, no method other 
than the Universal method projected from 
above. " As above, so below," is the Law 

23 



Life's Response to Consciousness 

of Laws; so we may reason that, as man 
projects his thoughts from the mental realm 
and expresses them in the physical, so does 
the First Cause, as Universal Life, project 
His thoughts from the Mental Realm, and 
express them as a physical universe. 

If this argument is true, God is not Mind 
any more than man is mind; neither is all 
Mind, for Mind, Divine Mind, Universal 
Mind, call it what you may, is only one of 
the many planes where the Universal Life is 
consciously active. 



24 



CHAPTER II 

THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE AND MIND 

Man sees the universe only as he is per- 
sonally related to it. It is a relative uni- 
verse to each of us, because it is the interpre- 
tation of the individual mind. To each of 
us it is different. To one it is a mass of in- 
sensate matter, without life or intelligence; 
to another it is matter, but matter energized 
from without by the Omnipotent to which it 
automatically responds, and to still another 
it is a living substance, " worked and guided 
from within outward." 

What the ultimate truth is, lies outside 
the realm of the individual mind, and, there- 
fore, is not a matter of knowledge. That 
truth which each man thinks will bring him 
the most concrete benefits is the natural and 
wise truth for him to accept, for experience 
is a teacher that can be trusted to bring him 
by the only road to the ultimate Truth. 

25 



Life's Response 

We are a part of this universe, and what 
it is, we are. The law that holds it in 
poise, holds us. If the universe is without 
life and intelligence, then man, made of the 
same substance, is no greater. He is not 
alive now and never can be. If the universe 
be matter energized by some external power, 
then man is also an automaton, moving 
when the power is applied, and moving as 
the power directs, with no internal response, 
and with no results except that of deteriora- 
tion. If the universe is the living sub- 
stance of the Infinite, then is man alive 
and conscious, and the power of the Om- 
nipotent is within him, unfolding, in its 
beauty, as he passes from stage to stage 
of the long journey from ignorance to 
Truth. 

When the Universal Life becomes mani- 
fest the Life, with its inward awareness, is 
limited in myriads of forms, each a unit 
of the All sent through planes of varied 
density. There is always individual con- 
sciousness where there is individual life, for 
consciousness is a part of life. It is the 
26 



To Consciousness 

part which feels life and knows life, and 
feeling and knowing, it responds to all that 
affects life. Consciousness is the inner side 
of life, for it is the awareness of itself. 
Consciousness and life cannot be separated 
in any of its phenomena. 

As the individual is a part of the Uni- 
versal, and consequently under the same 
laws of cause and effect as the relative uni- 
verse, it will be necessary to understand just 
what we mean by law. 

That which we call law is not an actor 
somewhere in the Kosmos that arbitrarily 
does things. Law is the name we give to 
the orderly sequence of cause and effect. 
There is no chance, for effect always fol- 
lows cause, and, in turn, becomes a cause. 
There is no luck, for whatever is, is because 
of what was. The individual life is the 
manifested effect. The cause lies in the 
Will, and Power, and Intelligence of the 
Unmanifested Universal Life to express it- 
self, therefore the Universal Will, Power, 
and Intelligence are in the individual, be- 
cause it is part of the whole. 
27 



Life's Response 

If we could see God omnipresent in our 
universe, and think of religion as the bind- 
ing back the manifest to the Unmanifest, 
then we would see science as the mani- 
festation of religion, as does our Eastern 
brother. To us science has one language 
and religion another, and we fail to translate 
the one into the other. Evolution, to us, is 
strictly scientific; the Hindoo translates it 
into religion and learns a valuable truth. 
He tells us that " The European says it is 
competition, natural and sexual selection, 
that forces one body to take the form of 
another. We (Hindoos) admit that the 
amoeba goes higher and higher, until it be- 
comes a Buddha, but we are at the same 
time equally certain you cannot get any 
amount of work out of a machine until you 
put it on the other side. If you want a 
mass of energy at one end, you have got to 
put it in at the other end; it may be in an- 
other form, but the amount must be the 
same. Therefore, if a Buddha is at one end 
of the change, the very amoeba must have 
been the Buddha also. If the Buddha is the 

28 



To Consciousness 

evolved amoeba, the amoeba was the in- 
volved Buddha." x 

The universe evolves because of this se- 
quence; the part is no different from the 
whole, except in its unfoldment. Man has 
unfolded a higher consciousness of life than 
the amoeba, so he has a better form, but the 
life is no different; it is the consciousness 
that has grown, and it will continue to grow 
until it has expanded into the Universal Con- 
sciousness, and " become one with the 
father." Law is the orderly steps of 
progress, first involution, and then evolu- 
tion, or, in other words, first cause and then 
effect. When the units of life become mani- 
fest it is the Universal-substance with the 
Universal - consciousness, the Universal- 
power and the Universal-knowledge, but so 
dormant, locked so tight in a form so dense 
and limited, that it can respond only to a 
stimulus of terrific impact. There for 
countless ages it dwells, stirred occasionally 
by earthquakes, volcanoes, and the descent 

1 Vivekananda, " Jnana Yoga." 

29 



Life's Response 

of glaciers, worn by the waves of the ocean, 
and helped ages after by man in mechanical 
pursuits. 

This is no new thought. It is the oldest 
philosophy in the world, and the newest. 
Scientists, dreamers, and poets are evolu- 
tionists; and what is evolution but the 
progress of life through matter, through 
mind, through any and every thing that 
stands between it and the perfect knowledge 
which is Omniscient? 

Ruskin was a seer of life in the dust of 
the earth. Wherever the dust began to as- 
sume any orderly or lovely state, there was 
present, to him, the spirit that culminates in 
human life, and his description of the trans- 
mutation of the dust, from a state of the 
greatest impurity, slowly rising in its evolu- 
tion through the mineral kingdom, to the 
time it becomes a sapphire, an opal, or a 
diamond, is one of the loveliest gems of the 
English language. 1 Even in this lowest 
kingdom, life has the intelligence to defy 

1 Ruskin, " Ethics of the Dust." 
30 



To Consciousness 

some of the physical laws, and to arrange 
its own zoned crystallization, for he de- 
scribes a brecciated agate which became 
" crystallized amidst the fragments . . . 
so that, at one time, gravity acts upon them 
and disposes of them in horizontal layers, or 
causes them to droop in stalactites; and 
at another, gravity is utterly defied and the 
substances in solution are crystallized in 
bands of equal thickness on every side of the 
cell. ,, x 

Why one unit of mineral matter should 
express more of life and consciousness than 
another is no more remarkable than why 
one man should be ahead of another in in- 
telligence. It is all a matter of responding 
to the environment; the response is the in- 
ternal adjustment that reacts on the form, 
and this action and its necessary reaction re- 
sult in evolution. 

A natural question arises : What becomes 
of the unit when it has reached the limits 
of its kingdom? Does it remain there a 

1 Ruskin, " Ethics of the Dust." 
31 



Life's Response 

prisoner for all eternity, or is there a heaven 
for the mineral life, a place where it reaps 
the reward of its efforts? If by reward we 
mean an opportunity for continued prog- 
ress, then evolution is the door to heaven. 
Evolution is the Divine method which pre- 
vents the form from holding the life and 
consciousness in bondage. The door be- 
tween the mineral kingdom and the 
vegetable shall not always remain closed. 
The time will come to each unit, when the 
life shall have evolved to such perfection 
that it can no longer be compressed into a 
form unable to respond to its needs; then 
will it knock at the door of life, and enter 
into a higher manifestation, where its prog- 
ress will be along similar lines. 

Tracing the life after it has left the min- 
eral kingdom is more easy. Plants have 
life; we put the seeds in the ground and 
watch them grow; but, what is life, and 
what makes the plant grow? A plant pre- 
supposes, first, the seed, and then conditions 
which have enabled it to break the seed and 
to express itself according to its species. 

32 



To Consciousness 

Conditions are only one factor in growth, 
the nature of the organism is, according to 
Darwin, equally important. 

Life is so hidden in the mineral that it 
was long in being discovered. The life 
which we call matter had, to the average 
man, no higher destiny than to be of use in 
furthering his needs and pleasures. Life 
belonged to a part of the universe, and the 
rest was responsive, not to its own con- 
sciousness, but to the force of physical 
power. 

A philosophy of this kind is arbitrary. 
Creation is at war with itself, and a part 
of the universe is without cause. It could 
not have been created by life and come 
forth a dead thing. Where was its origin, 
and what was its purpose in the great 
scheme ? No wonder finite mind questioned 
the Infinite and asked Why? Why? Why?, 
and no wonder the Infinite gave no answer. 
Life is. God is. The great Universe is. 
There is no separation even as cause and 
effect, for Life, God, and the Universe are 
a unit; the part we call life and the universe 

33 



Life's Response 

are manifested, while the whole, God, is 
both manifest and unmanifest. 

In studying the organism of the plant we 
found it responded in exactly the same way 
to stimulus as did the mineral, so we were 
forced to conclude it had the same life and 
consciousness. This consciousness of life, 
however, must be greater, for the form has 
evolved and the life has greater freedom. 
The growth of the plant depends on its or- 
ganism adapting itself to its environment. 
The larger consciousness gives a more in- 
telligent grasp to the conditions, and, while 
we may assist the growth by altering the 
environment, the principle of life belongs 
to the organism, and it is an actor in its own 
growth. 

In the mineral kingdom, the relation of 
life to the creative power was much more 
intimate and dependent than when, advanc- 
ing in consciousness, it entered into a higher 
expression; then it was passive to such uni- 
versal methods as best protected it and en- 
abled it to exist. When it entered into the 
new conditions of a more evolved life, it 

34 



To Consciousness 

had the experience of the past as a fund 
to draw upon, and these experiences were a 
part of its consciousness. Now there is an 
opportunity for independent action which 
the former state forbade, and now there is 
the necessity as well. No longer is its life 
protected by a massive form that resists all 
but the most powerful stimulus. Root, 
stalk, and branch are in danger from every 
quarter. A certain amount of semi-intel- 
ligence must be exercised for self-preserva- 
tion; this intelligence belongs to the unit; it 
is not an excrescence that has attached itself 
somehow, and controls the plant, but it is the 
innate involved intelligence that is unfolding 
through the process of experience. 

The effort of self-preservation in plant 
life results in the formation of certain 
habits which we call laws, because they are 
orderly and regular. 

As only those plants live which corre- 
spond to their environment, the most im- 
portant law of the plant is the law of co- 
operation. The plant must co-operate with 
the universal supply if it is to live. Food 

35 



Life's Response 

and water may not be at hand, but how 
persistently the roots and rootlets defy grav- 
ity and physical obstructions, as they push 
through the hard earth for that which will 
enable them to blossom and fruit, and later 
to seed for the perpetuation of their species. 

In the animal kingdom, competition is 
added to co-operation. From the protozoon, 
that spontaneously divides and subdivides 
into new individuals, up through the vari- 
ous types, to the domestic animals, the 
struggle to live grows, from the effort for 
self-preservation and reproduction, to a 
recognition of and a care for others. The 
young are anticipated and cared for and 
self-preservation includes the preservation 
of the offspring, so existence depends in a 
large measure on the conscious effort to ob- 
tain such supplies as are necessary. 

Desire is dormant in the mineral kingdom, 
In the vegetable kingdom it is present, and 
expresses itself in co-operative efforts. In 
the animal kingdom it is strong, and serves 
the purpose of awakening the conscious- 
ness. Desire, with its accompanying ef- 

36 



To Consciousness 

forts, results in pleasure or pain. In the 
lower animals there is only the recognition 
of the sensation, but slowly the association 
grows between the object that caused the 
sensation and the experience, and the ani- 
mal grows in consciousness. 

In the domestic animals the first glimpse 
of the individual mind is noted. In the 
lower animals, the mind comes under what is 
called the group soul. These animals move 
in flocks and bands, and respond to a com- 
mon stimulus. The desire of the animal 
and his association of the accompanying 
pleasure or pain gives him the physical basis 
for consciousness, and the nervous system 
begins to evolve. 

The study of the human kingdom in- 
troduces two new elements, the soul or in- 
carnating principle, and the individual mind, 
which enables man to be a self-conscious 
actor in the evolution that, up to this time, 
has been of an unconscious nature. 

Why man has been so curious as to his 
condition after death, and has given so little 
thought as to what preceded birth, is amaz- 

37 



Life's Response 

ing. Immortality is endless life. If we 
are to live forever, we must have lived for- 
ever. Everything that has a beginning 
must have an end. The answer to ques- 
tions about life comes from revelation, and 
not from experience, and consequently is, 
or is not, believed; it can never be known. 
If we accept the revelation, certain corre- 
spondences of life and of logical reasoning 
will strengthen the belief. Immortality is 
an inseparable condition of consciousness, 
for man can think of neither time, place, nor 
condition without being present as the 
thinker, yet, as immortality means so much 
more than the limited existence of life on 
the plane of mind and the coarser plane of 
matter, it lies beyond human experience, and 
cannot be proved by any action of mind. If 
we accept the revelation, which everything 
in us and in nature confirms, then it is wise 
for us to give the best thought as to how 
we can co-operate with the Omniscient in 
the matter of organism and of environment. 
In the Western Scriptures, the revelation 
is that the physical body comes from dust, 

38 



To Consciousness 

the soul from God, and the consummation of 
the life and consciousness embodied in the 
form is a definite experience of happiness' 
or misery hereafter. In the Eastern Scrip- 
tures, the revelation is that the physical 
body comes from matter (dust), the Self 
from Brahman (God), and the consumma- 
tion is the full expansion of consciousness 
on planes of life, reaching beyond the men- 
tal, back to the Source from whence it came. 
At first there is an apparent contradiction in 
these two revelations as to the final outcome 
of life, but on a closer examination a per- 
fect agreement is seen. The Bible makes 
much of the heaven world, and the descrip- 
tions are in the language of mental photog- 
raphy, but always is the vivid picture of 
heaven and hell corrected by the deeper 
teaching of the Unmanifest, and of the 
union of the Father and Son. The " Upan- 
ishads " refer to this higher mental plane 
(heaven), and recognize it as the resting- 
place where the soul assimilates the experi- 
ences of earth life between the incarna- 
tions, but it puts the emphasis on the 

39 



Life's Response 

culmination of the complete unfoldment of 
the life with its consciousness. Each Scrip- 
ture speaks of different bodies on different 
planes, and the Bible recognizes reincarna- 
tion, 1 which is a fundamental teaching of 
the Oriental religion. 

A little thought will convince us that a 
diversity of life, consciousness, and form is 
reasonable, and that man is an actor on 
many planes. Commencing with the phys- 
ical plane, we know that man is alive and 
active. He is conscious of vibrations which 
come to him through the sense organs, and 
we know he has a physical body by means 
of which he contacts and appropriates phys- 
ical matter. The plane of sensation is as 
real as the physical. On this plane the man 
is acutely alive and conscious, his desires are 
what impel him into physical activity, and 
his emotions are the greater part of him- 
self. As both his desires and emotions are 
strictly his own, he has to have a body of 
some nature that responds to these sensa- 

l St. Matthew n, 14; 17, 10-13; St. John 9, 2-3. 
40 



To Consciousness 

tions, and that responds for him alone. The 
mental plane is self-evident also. On this 
plane the evolved man considers before he 
yields to his desires and emotions. He lays 
his plans after careful consideration, and 
carries them through regardless of pain or 
pleasure, so here again is the necessity for 
an individual body, that man's thoughts may 
be his own, and not lost in a mass of mental 
vibrations. If man is an individual self in 
these three aspects, he must be alive and con- 
scious to the vibrations of the three grades 
of matter, and he must have a form that 
the vibrations can contact, and that limits 
and protects him according to his needs. 

There are other planes above and beyond 
the mental, but it is not necessary to en- 
large upon them in this practical study of 
life. St. Paul writes of bodies celestial and 
bodies terrestrial, so the idea of form other 
than the physical is not new to the Christian 
thinker. 

We know that the Self, the individualized 
life, is no more compressed into these 
specialized selves, than the Absolute is com- 

41 



Life's Response 

pressed into the Universe. We know the 
body, the sensations, the mind are not the /. 
We use the possessive pronoun " my," and 
say, " my body," " my desire," " my mind." 
The word plane is confusing, and speak- 
ing of one plane as above another is too 
common to be corrected, although the idea 
is altogether wrong. Planes are streams 
of vibrations, the finer penetrating the more 
dense, and all becoming an unit of inter- 
penetration. Science recognizes vibrations 
on the physical plane, and measures and 
classifies them as light, heat, sound, etc., 
and postulates an ether. These different 
rates of vibrations pass through the ether 
and interpenetrate each other. They are 
simply vibrations that impact the sense or- 
gans; it is the consciousness that defines 
them, and recognizes one sensation as heat, 
and another as light; so, once again, the 
Law of Continuity is useful to explain how 
the self can gather the various vibrations 
into a common experience, and know what 
he is thinking of, and how he is feeling and 
acting. 

42 



To Consciousness 

Attraction is a most important universal 
law. It is because of attraction that every- 
thing has its place, and is kept in its place. 
Attraction is the magnet that brings man 
and woman together in the marriage rela- 
tion, and it is attraction that draws a waiting 
ego to birth. When the ego is ready for a 
physical-life-experience, he responds to the 
stimulus. It is no chance response; many 
stimuli are playing on his mental body, but 
it is necessary for him to respond through 
a conscious recognition. There is no room 
for a mistake; the mind is not colored by 
the emotions; the past has been assimilated, 
and the ego returns voluntarily to his earthly 
school, so the child incarnates in the home 
where the law of attraction has drawn him, 
and in that home will be found the oppor- 
tunities for his future development. 

Before the physical birth, there is the 
ante-natal period. The ego, having passed 
successively through the mental plane and 
the plane of sensation, has been embodied 
by the matter of these planes. Now a phys- 
ical body must be formed. This is largely 

43 



Life's Response 

the work of the parents, and it is a most 
important work, for on the perfection of the 
physical matter built into it depends its abil- 
ity to respond to the vibrations of the other 
planes, where the self is also functioning. 

The physical body is formed entirely of 
physical matter; atom after atom is at- 
tracted, not by chance, for, let us remember, 
the universe is an orderly manifestation, 
and is controlled by the Universal Mind. 
These atoms are not new matter; each has 
a past, and every experience of that past is 
blended with the matter of the atom. " A 
shadow never falls upon a wall without leav- 
ing there a permanent trace, which might be 
made visible by resorting to proper 
processes. Upon the walls of our most pri- 
vate apartments, where we think the eye of 
intrusion is altogether shut out, and our 
retirement can never be profaned, there ex- 
ist the vestiges of all our acts, silhouettes of 
whatever we have done." 1 

There is much authority for this per- 

^r. Draper, " Conflict Between Science and Re- 
ligion/' 

44 



To Consciousness 

manence of impression. Science and re- 
ligion agree that nothing is lost, u that every 
thought displacing the particles of the brain, 
and setting them in motion, scatters them 
throughout the universe, and consequently 
each particle of existing matter must be a 
register of all that happened." 1 This is 
science, revealed teaching anticipated sci- 
ence, and in Revelation we read of the 
books being opened, and " the dead were 
judged out of those things which were writ- 
ten in the books according to their works.'' 
The Eastern Scriptures call this history 
of the experience of life the Akasic rec- 
ords, and akasic means: the memory of 
Nature. 

These dimly conscious atoms are the 
material the physical body is made of, atoms 
that have responded to stimuli through the 
ages, and that, through habit, are ready to 
respond again in the same old way. If 
man were only physical, he would be at the 
mercy of his body, but into that body are 

J Drs. Jevons and Babbage, " Principles of Science." 

45 



Life's Response 

built two nervous systems which are 
elaborated into a brain where he unifies his 
thoughts, his feeling, and his acts. Vibra- 
tions reach the brain over the nerves of the 
body, and group certain of the brain cells 
which respond; after many repetitions the 
man becomes accustomed to the sensations. 
These sensations, from the nature of the 
vibrations, are of pleasure or pain, which, 
as they are not continuous, give him a new 
experience and he learns that the sensations 
come and go, but that there is a permanent 
something that remains. 

This feeling of permanency is the root of 
sel f -consciousness, and sel f -consciousness 
gives a greater awareness of life. In the 
mineral kingdom the awareness was one of 
sensation; in the vegetable kingdom to sen- 
sation was added desire; the animal ex- 
presses sensation, desire, and emotion, but 
man, in the further evolution of life, adds 
to sensation, desire, and emotion the con- 
sciousness that back of all he is an entity 
that is permanent, and to whom these are 
but experiences that come and go. 

4 6 



To Consciousness 

Evolution is always preceded by involu- 
tion. Evolution refers to form, and in- 
volution to consciousness. " There is no 
growth and no perfection for consciousness; 
it is all there, and always. All that can 
happen to it is to turn itself outward in- 
stead of remaining turned inward. The 
God in you cannot evolve, but He may show 
forth His powers through matter that He 
has appropriated for the purpose, and the 
matter evolves to serve Him." * 

Individual mind starts with self -con- 
sciousness, but it also includes lower states 
of consciousness. Not until self -conscious- 
ness is unfolded does life become a conscious 
actor in evolution. It is in proportion as 
man becomes aware of himself that he is 
able to disentangle himself from the emo- 
tions and desires, and to control his life from 
the mental plane. On this plane he learns 
the further lesson of the relative value of 
things, and sees the necessity of an in- 
dividual effort. 

1 Annie Besant. 

47 



CHAPTER III 



THE MENTAL REALM 



From the preceding studies we can an- 
swer three questions of interest : What does 
birth mean, and when is man born? What 
does death mean, and when does man die? 
And where is man? 

The man we are to study now is the 
evolved man, the man who is self-conscious 
through long experience in the human king- 
dom, and who has an active emotional and 
mental nature that are as much a part of 
him as the physical. When this ego re- 
sponds to the call for birth, he must first 
become conscious on the lower mental plane. 
On the development of his mental life de- 
pends his status on earth. The fact of his 
being man at all proves that he is related 
to this, the highest, plane of humanity; so, 
on his way to earth, he must be born in a 

48 



Life's Response to Consciousness 

mental body on the mental plane. Without 
this mental body to receive the impacts of 
mental vibrations he would be no more than 
a conscious animal, but he is MAN, and he 
recognizes thought vibrations, and he must 
have the mechanism with which to respond, 
if he is to have an intelligent control over 
his physical life. Having become awak- 
ened to the fine vibrations of the mental 
plane, the next step is to become sensitive to 
the coarser impacts of desire and emotion, 
so slowly the self draws around him the 
matter of this plane of sensation, and forms 
a body that responds to a rate of vibration 
not so fine, a body that will respond to both 
physical and to mental vibrations, a body 
that craves stimulation, and that responds 
by feelings of pain or pleasure, and where 
the sensations may be carried to and from 
the brain. This body he has in common 
with the animal kingdom, and it was the re- 
peated experience of sensation that raised 
the animal conscious to the higher stage of 
self -consciousness. Having related him- 
self to the mental realm, and to the plane 

49 



Life's Response 

of sensation, he is ready for physical birth. 
The physical body does not abolish the 
other bodies, but the self specializes and 
thinks, feels, and acts in his several incase- 
ments as an unit. With the physical body 
he is in touch with physical matter, and in 
that body he can, by the interpenetration of 
vibration, act, feel, and think. 

The physical body is an instrument that 
gets out of tune. Vibrations play upon it 
with disastrous results, and in a few years 
it ceases to answer the needs of the now 
rapidly unfolding consciousness, and the 
ego drops it as a worn-out garment. This 
is the death of the physical body; it no 
longer responds to the needs of the self, so 
it dies as an organism that fails to corre- 
spond with its environment. The desires 
and emotions must also have their death. 
There is now no physical body with which 
to gather those objects the ego desires; there 
is no physical contact to be had with the 
objects loved and hated, so the desires and 
emotions wear themselves out, and the body 
falls away, as did the physical. The men- 

50 



To Consciousness 

tal life and consciousness, with its body, 
alone remains, but in time its vibrations are 
assimilated, and it, too, ceases to respond 
to the needs of the self, and this manifesta- 
tion of the ego is finished, to be repeated 
again and again as the desire for life again 
attracts the ego into incarnation. 

So birth means the awakening response to 
external stimulation. Man is born on any 
plane when he responds to the vibrations of 
that plane. He dies on any plane when he 
ceases to respond to the vibrations of that 
plane. Death is the inability to respond to 
the external stimuli. It is not the loss of 
life; it is, rather, a greater demand of life 
on the organism than it can adapt itself to. 
As, during earth life, the man responds to 
mental, sensational, and physical vibrations, 
he is alive and conscious on the three planes, 
and he is at any one time " where his con- 
sciousness is." This is obviously true, for 
how often is he so immersed in thought as 
to be oblivious to all else, or he may be so 
vibrant with emotion as to be lost to reason 
or the things of earth, and again he may 

5i 



Life's Response 

be so of the earth, earthy, that for the mo- 
ment he is the animal rather than the man. 

To a few, the teaching of reincarnation 
and its process is a matter of knowledge, 
but to others, who lack this aspect of self- 
consciousness, it is not true in the sense of 
its being a personal experience that is re- 
membered. It may be, however, a working 
hypothesis which, even to the believer, will 
bring life and its problems under the law 
of cause and effect, and will enable man to 
intelligently meet the joys and sorrows of 
the present, knowing them to be the fruitage 
of past sowing, as well as the seed for a 
future harvest. 

It is most important to remember that 
the Self is a distinct entity, and that the 
bodies, in and through which he expresses 
himself, are limited only by his conscious- 
ness of the life of the planes. These bodies 
belong to the self, and should be under its 
control. It is the great lesson of life to 
learn self-control, but as every thought, 
every sensation, and every act is a stimulus 
to the atoms of the physical body, and as 

5* 



To Consciousness 

these atoms have a degree of consciousness, 
there soon arises a conflict between the man 
and his body for mastery. The body, with 
its unconscious mind, is the antagonist the 
Self, as incarnate man, must fight in the 
mental realm. If the body conquers, it will, 
through the almost irresistible strength of 
wrong habits, so hamper the man that prog- 
ress will be slow. 

Stimuli of every kind, to be self-con- 
sciously entertained, must reach the mental 
plane, and from this realm they are re- 
turned to the physical self by means of 
vibrations which play on the brain and are 
there interpreted as knowledge. 

The word mind has been variously de- 
fined. Sometimes it is limited to the intel- 
lectual part of human nature, " that in man 
which thinks and wills, remembers and rea- 
sons." Again, it is a " series of feelings," 
or it is used as a synonym for soul, and in- 
cludes the entire spiritual nature. Bastian 
thinks "the term should include all uncon- 
scious nerve actions as well as those which 
are attended with consciousness." 

53 



Life's Response 

Physiology is indispensable to psychology 
in the study of the mind, for it has thrown 
light on the mechanism of consciousness, 
and given a physical basis for its manifesta- 
tion. Mind does not leave the body when 
consciousness departs as in sleep, hypnosis, 
or certain diseases; it is still present, and 
its powers are ample to carry on the vital 
functions, so now the mind is studied under 
the two aspects of conscious and uncon- 
scious, which brings it under the definition 
of Bastian. 

The consciousness of self includes " ex- 
istence, individuality, and identity." When 
that consciousness in any form or degree 
attaches itself to the physical body, the in- 
fant has become a human being. Professor 
Ladd says : " We have no sufficient means 
for deciding how far the mental life of the 
human embryo keeps pace with its organic 
evolution. We do not even know beyond 
doubt that the embryo has a mental life, in 
the only tenable meaning of the word, that 
is a life of conscious states. But it is prob- 
able its ante-natal movements are not all 

54 



To Consciousness 

purely reflex, and neither accompanied nor 
directed by conscious sensation, feeling, and 
volition. The mental life of the embryo, 
if it exists at all, can hardly be more than 
an irregular and fitful succession of the low- 
est and least complex mental phenomena. 
Taste, smell, hearing, and light cannot enter 
into such mental life. Obscure feelings 
arising from changes in relation to the sur- 
rounding tissue and fluids of the mother, 
or resulting from disturbances in its own 
internal organs and equally obscure feel- 
ings of innervation, as its limbs are moved, 
must constitute the greater part of its ex- 
perience." x 

It is very probable that, before birth, the 
mental self is working in conjunction with 
the parents in building the body. The 
nervous system is perfect at birth, so the 
mind has the means of contacting the body 
and of supervising such functions as are 
active in the fetal life. As this supervision 
is the work of the unconscious mind a few 

1 Professor Ladd, " Physiological Psychology." 
Quoted by Dr. Wythe. 

55 



Life's Response 

months later, it no doubt makes a beginning 
so soon as the relation is established. When 
the babe is born this aspect is the only mind 
he has, and for the first few years it is the 
controlling power; the result is the animal 
development of the child. Energy, result- 
ing from the food, is consumed in building 
the body, and play and activity are essential 
to grow the nerve fibers from the center of 
the cortex to the spinal column, so that the 
conscious mind, through the highly evolved 
brain matter, can send vibrations from the 
mental realm to the physical. 

It has been said that " the only material 
for the conscious mind to work with is vi- 
bration from without and consciousness 
from within." The body unconsciously re- 
sponds to vibrations in the early months, 
but before consciousness can respond, the 
brain must be educated. The brain is a 
purely physical organ, and answers easily 
to stimuli. The desire of the child to com- 
municate with others starts on the plane of 
sensation, but it must have the co-operation 
of mind before it can reach the physical 

56 



To Consciousness 

self. The desire to communicate with 
others is sufficient to awaken a mental 
process. 

As thought and speech are the highest 
achievements of humanity, the brain cells 
which have evolved to serve this unfoldment 
of consciousness are much more intelligent 
than the lower cells of the body. The brain 
is, in reality, a constellation of intelligent 
units, held together by an action of the 
mind, and not an organ of the body, so de- 
sire, repeated and repeated, stirs the nervous 
matter of the cells whose connections are 
not anchored, and again and again they come 
together in an orderly manner, until a sym- 
pathetic bond is formed, and objects with 
their concomitant cells are related in action 
and reaction. 

Returning for the moment to the inter- 
penetration of the three planes, it is very 
necessary to understand that the Self is 
much more than any or all the specialized 
selves, and that the experience of the two 
higher planes must be related always to the 
physical to enter into the physical conscious- 

57 



Life's Response 

ness. Feelingf, desire, and emotion can only 
be sensed as they are interpreted by the 
mind; so every sensation, every desire, and 
every emotion are factors in the education 
of brain matter. 

This recognition of brain response to 
stimuli comes from the physiologists. A 
few only call it an intelligent response, for 
the old idea of matter is too powerful to 
be easily overcome, but they' define brain 
action as they define any other sentient 
thing, and the word " response " to the 
stimuli of thought or feeling, which is cer- 
tainly external to the brain, is the inward 
awareness that belongs to life. 

The education of the brain is the act of 
the child. From without vibrations are 
playing on his nervous system, clamoring 
for recognition; from within consciousness 
is demanding a medium through which it can 
be heard, and the child, fretting at his im- 
potence, struggles to break through the wall 
that separates him from others by trying 
harder and harder to master the neural 
energy. " The learning to speak and to 

58 



To Consciousness 

read is not automatic, it requires the most 
persistent attention and application for 
months, and the process of brain shaping has 
to be done piece by piece and layer by layer. 
Here is an example of a given stimulus ef- 
fecting a permanent anatomical change in 
the brain stuff, which will add a specific and 
remarkable cerebral function to that place 
that never had it before, and, therefore, 
which could not have had it originally/' * 

The physical self is a prisoner in matter 
before the brain stuff has been educated. 
The mental self may be active, but it has 
no means of bringing the results of its activ- 
ity through from the finer realm. The 
highest aspect of consciousness is dependent 
on the brain, and may be held in check by 
atoms that are slow to respond, or by poor 
tissue; a blood clot, or congested circula- 
tion, may so impede the relation between 
thought and act that the selves are not an 
unit. 

The Universal Mind is omniscient, while 

1 W. Hanna Thomson, u Brain and Personality." 

59 



Life's Response 

the individual mind is only so much of the 
Universal as the mental self can appropri- 
ate. The ability to appropriate is condi- 
tioned, first, by the consciousness, and then 
by the organism. The child's whole educa- 
tion is the experience that develops self -con- 
sciousness on the physical plane. The word 
education means a " drawing out," and it 
is the purpose of life to draw out and to 
translate desire and thought into action, so 
that the result known as cause and effect 
may, from the experience, draw out the self- 
conscious relation between act, desire, emo- 
tion, and thought. 

This self -consciousness appears as a wak- 
ing consciousness, and is the every-day mind 
we use in gathering up the past and relat- 
ing it to the present and to the future. It 
is the thinker who sees cause and effect on 
all the planes where he is active, and who 
combines one with the other for future 
growth. 

The child and the unevolved man have a 
waking consciousness, but it is very differ- 
ent from this. They recognize vibrations, 

60 



To Consciousness 

but there is no recognition of the finer stim- 
ulus and no discrimination. Each needs 
strong shocks to arouse desire and mental 
activity, in order to learn the difference be- 
tween the self and the not-self. The span 
is great between the man of that mentality 
and our present humanity, but the child, in 
its first few weeks of earth life, must begin 
at the beginning, and review the steps of 
progress before it can undertake the new 
work that belongs to its own future. 

The vibrations recognized by the mind are 
at first chaotic; conscious attention is not 
aroused, but, as the impacts are repeated 
day after day, the self begins to take notice. 
The sensations and impressions become as- 
sociated, and soon a sequence is established 
between the sensation and the impression 
which gives the child his first lesson in cause 
and effect. The familiarity between the in- 
coming and outgoing stimuli has often been 
called memory, but memory, strictly speak- 
ing, is not a faculty of the mind; it is a 
quality, rather, of the whole mind. When 
the sensations and impressions have become 
61 



Life's Response 

recognized the conscious mind begins to rec- 
ollect, and soon, through comparison and 
classification, the chaos becomes harmony. 

The brain merely receives the vibrations, 
the consciousness passes the vibrations on 
as sensations and impressions. Thus the 
external stimuli from the physical world 
reach the mental realm by means of vibra- 
tions playing on the brain cells, and carried 
by consciousness to the mental self, where 
the internal stimuli are aroused and returned 
as vibration to the brain, and there in- 
terpreted by the physical man in terms of 
desire, emotion, or thought. 

The word mind really means the activity 
of a specialized self on the mental plane, 
and conscious mind is his conscious effort 
to learn the nature of the vibrations of 
mental matter, so that he may respond with 
intelligence to their meaning. Here he 
meets the problems of all the planes, and 
from here he sends back such vibrations as 
later result in thoughts and acts. The re- 
sults of the acts become the experience that 
teaches what vibrations should be encour- 
62 



To Consciousness 

aged, and what should be avoided, and the 
lessons learned unfold the intellect and de- 
velop the reasoning powers. 

It is man's interpretation of vibrations 
that gives him the material for his physical 
activity. The results of his interpretation 
are, like truth, relative. Vibration is al- 
ways a movement caused by a stimulus and a 
response. As the self moves in mental mat- 
ter the stimulus is ever impacting the mental 
body, and being interpreted as phenomena. 
What he knows is not the cause of the vi- 
bration, but the effect the vibration has on 
him, and as the effect varies from the first 
experience to the common-sense idea of 
many experiences, his knowledge grows. 
Soon he is able to see a sequence in the 
phenomena, and then he links cause and ef- 
fect and has the key to justice, and he 
knows that the Law of Continuity, which 
ever works in the physical universe, is a law 
of nature, and that it has to be reckoned 
with in the mental realm as well. 

The brain is not a permanent storehouse, 
where all the vibrations are stored for future 

63 



Life's Response 

reference. It vibrates to the conscious 
stimulation of the self, and the response 
becomes an asset of the whole mind in its 
conscious and unconscious aspect. It is to 
the unconscious aspect that we are indebted 
for life itself, for here, in the subconscious 
regions of the mentality, is the intelligence 
to care for the body in its every-day needs, 
ceaselessly it watches over the heart beat 
and the circulation; it sees that the food is 
digested and carried from cell to cell; it 
cares for the respiration, assimilation, and 
elimination. These were the duties of the 
group soul, away back in the vegetable king- 
dom, before the plane of mind was touched. 
When life reached a point where it con- 
sciously helped in its own advance, the mind 
took on the duties of the group soul, and 
cared for the body, independent of the 
higher aspect of the mind. 

The Rev. R. J. Campbell illustrates the 
ordinary consciousness by an island that is 
really the " summit of a mountain, whose 
base is miles below the surface of the ocean. 
Summit and base are one," he says, " and 

6 4 



To Consciousness 

yet no one realizes, when standing on the 
little island, that he is perched at the very 
top of a mountain peak." 

We have no conception of the magnitude 
of this subterranean region. Man is as far 
from knowing himself as he is from know- 
ing the Universe of the Absolute. He is 
the microcosm of the macrocosm, the lit- 
tle universe that is a replica of the whole, 
and he is struggling onward, ever onward, 
with the history of all past life locked in 
the very atoms of his body, and in the mind 
that never forgets, and with all future 
knowledge a legacy of the conscious mind, 
to be his when it has " passed through the 
fiery experience of the soul. ,, 

Philosophers from all times have tried to 
explain the relation of man to the external 
world. Idealistic philosophy has gone so 
far as to deny the reality of everything out- 
side states of consciousness, but the prac- 
tical man will be more liable to take a 
broader view of life than that of negation. 
He realizes, of course, that we can know 
nothing of that which causes the vibration, 

65 



Life's Response 

and that it is only as we are aware of the 
stimulus that any consciousness is aroused, 
but he is willing to assume that back of the 
panorama is a something that calls to him 
to open new avenues of sense organs, and 
to develop the mental faculties, so that he 
may knock at the door of the substance-of- 
things, and know the manifested God. If 
he can aspire to do this, mind in both its 
aspects will work together as one. Vive- 
kananda tells us that the cause of evolution 
is desire : " The animal wants to do some- 
thing else, but does not find the environment 
satisfactory, and therefore manufactures a 
new body. Who manufactures? He him- 
self, his will." 

When the child is born he brings his 
whole wealth with him. He has the in- 
stincts of the lower forms of life, all that 
experience has taught the plant or the ani- 
mal is bequeathed to the incarnating soul, 
and, as he comes to earth and lives the few 
years, he gathers new material, which he 
works into his ever-growing capital. The 
cortex of his little brain is a new daybook, 
66 



To Consciousness 

but the nervous system which culminates in 
the brain is the age-old ledger where every 
account stands where it has been posted. 

In the lowest form of life, the uni-cellular, 
there was no special brain, the whole or- 
ganism acted as a brain. This primal cell 
had enfolded in it the future history of brain 
development. As it began to unfold, " nu- 
merous thin strings of fibers " radiated from 
it and became twisted knots in places. 
These knots were the primitive brain cen- 
ters, and were organs of response to stimuli. 
It was the contact of food, air, and water, all 
of which are necessary for life, that awak- 
ened the consciousness, and it was the prim- 
itive brain that was the medium through 
which the life responded to its own needs. 
When, after aeons of time, this life was 
ready for the human kingdom, these sub- 
ordinate brain centers remained, the gangli- 
onic centers scattered through the body and 
expanded into a middle brain, which lies be- 
tween the cortex and the back brain. 

If it is true, as all physiologists admit, 
that each cell " contains the register of all 

67 



Life's Response 

that happened," and if we remember there 
are no new atoms being created, for, when 
the universe became manifest, " the heavens 
and the earth were finished," then the very 
matter of our brains, and of our bodies, are 
atoms, alive and conscious, retaining the 
myriad of impressions of life, in its ascent 
from the lowest expression up to our pres- 
ent humanity. 

In the child, the atavistic tendencies show 
themselves during the first few weeks: the 
prehensile powers of the big toe and the 
clinging powers of the tiny hands are not 
needed by the human, yet they are present 
before the conscious mind has made its con- 
nection with the brain and taught the child 
a better way. Strange impulses and fears 
make each of us a mystery to ourselves, and 
a menace to society. Physicians have found 
it necessary to recognize these conditions, 
and they are classed under the general head 
of Psychasthenia. " The two striking 
phenomena of psychasthenia are its fixed 
ideas (obsessions) and its fears (phobias). 
Many of the victims are troubled by the 
68 



To Consciousness 

sense of the unreality of all things, them- 
selves included. The will power is weak, 
and they find it difficult to come to a deci- 
sion in regard to any matter requiring the 
exercise of judgment. 1 Under the head of 
psychasthenia are, claustrophobia, the mor- 
bid dread of closed places; agoraphobia, the 
morbid fear of open places, and demono- 
phobia, the fear of demons." 2 In these 
strange morbid conditions the conscious 
mind is not fully active, and the life has 
sunk back, for the time being, to the lower 
consciousness of the animal, where the self 
is not sensed as the one ruling and perma- 
nent thing in nature. In claustrophobia and 
agoraphobia the old instincts of self-preser- 
vation are upmost, and the man fears those 
places that were dangerous to the hunted 
animal. No argument can overcome his 
fears, for he has no reason to appeal to. In 
demonophobia, the atoms do not vibrate to 
so old a stimulus, but to one of the earlier 
forms of belief in the human kingdom, when 

1 Definition by Janet. 

2 Quotation from Dr. Wooster. 

6 9 



Life's Response 

everything was thought to be the work of 
gods and demons. Then the powers of Na- 
ture were personified, and the belief in an 
anthropomorphic God and Devil was the re- 
sult. 

These extreme cases date so far back in 
time that one is appalled at the phenomena, 
but how is it with each of us ? Who has not 
felt the almost irresistible impulse to do 
that which is foreign to his true personality ? 
How many an act has for its excuse, " I 
did not think " ? The call of the wild thrills 
each of us at times, and civilization loses its 
attraction. How the men and women of 
the cities long for the unconventional life 
is revealed by the summer exodus, when 
weeks are spent in camping. Nature sounds 
her warning, and this is a safe side-stepping 
that helps us in the struggle to live the life 
our conscious mind has decided is the life of 
progress. Without these partial returns, 
when the tired brain may recuperate so as 
to once again be an instrument for the con- 
scious mind, very many more of us would 
be controlled by the intelligence of the lower 
70 



To Consciousness 

brain centers, which are so easily aroused, 
and which are ever ready to intrude above 
the threshold of consciousness such impulses 
as were a part of its age-gone experience. 

If this brain of the unconscious mind 
stood still with its past record, the culmina- 
tion of unconscious activity, then the his- 
tory of man and of the race would be fin- 
ished, for there is no inductive faculty of 
reason in this aspect of the mind. It is the 
conscious mind that gathers new material 
and decides whether to make it a permanent 
asset or not, and it is the conscious mind 
that adds to the stimuli and that induces the 
response in the body by transferring the vi- 
brations of the finer bodies of sensation and 
of mind to the unconscious. 

This record of life in the consciousness is 
not a figment of the psychologist's and meta- 
physician's imagination; it is a teaching of 
physiology. Youmans, in his " Scientific 
Study of Human Nature," says : "As a 
thought passes from consciousness some- 
thing remains in the cerebral structure, call 
it what you may — trace, impression, residua. 

7i 



Life's Response 

What the precise character of these residua 
may be is, perhaps, questionable, but it is im- 
possible to deny their existence in some form 
consistent with the cerebral structure and 
activity. All thoughts, feelings, and im- 
pressions, when passing from consciousness, 
leave behind them in the nerve substance 
their effects or residua, and in this state they 
constitute what may be called latent or 
static mind" (unconscious mind). This 
permanent record in the nerve substance is 
why we are so suggestible to the conscious 
thought of ourselves and of others. This 
is why the great man makes all who are 
with him great. He has the stimulating 
power to vibrate those traces of past thought 
in the atoms that are superior to the ordinary 
trend of the everyday consciousness and 
the result is, great words and great deeds. 
If this is true, the opposite is true, also, 
and the man of low passions has the power 
to drag down the companion who is not 
positive to his own ideas of right and wrong. 
Physiologists cannot much longer refuse 
to recognize life and consciousness every- 

72 



To Consciousness 

where present, when they talk of atoms and 
cells reassembled for countless ages, retain- 
ing the power, under proper conditions, to 
give up the secrets of the past. 

If it were not for the unconscious mind 
life would he a failure, for every action that 
does not call for attention of a persistent 
character depends on this aspect and the as- 
sociation of its brain cells. The most of 
life is habit. Having done a thing con- 
sciously a few times, it is unconsciously 
done ever after, if the reason so decides 
or a lack of attention passes it by unnoticed. 
Habit simplifies everything. James says: 
" Man is born with a tendency to do more 
things than he has ready-made arrange- 
ments for in his nerve centers." This is 
only another way of saying that involution 
precedes evolution. It is the mind in its two 
aspects that makes evolution possible, the 
conscious to initiate the act, and the uncon- 
scious to make the act a habit, and thus give 
attention time to attend to new possibilities. 
Conscious and unconscious action properly 
blended would give the perfect mind, and 

73 



Life's Response to Consciousness 

humanity would have completed its evolu- 
tion; as it is, man is learning the mastery 
of mind through hard experience. Every- 
thing tending to induce passivity of the 
active should be discouraged, for passivity 
of one aspect of mind means a correspond- 
ing activity of the other. When the uncon- 
scious is the ruling power, man is at the 
mercy of a subordinate personality that can 
never reach the heights of his present un- 
f oldment, but, with the conscious active, and 
the cortical cells under control, the relation 
is normal, and such facts and truths as the 
reason accepts are passed down to the un- 
conscious mind to be utilized as habits, and 
to awaken neural energy that will make the 
body a finer organism for the ego's use. 
The atoms will respond to the desired stim- 
ulation, and old recollections will be ir- 
rupted from the vast storehouse of knowl- 
edge, and will blend with the new im- 
pressions, making, in their action and 
reaction, an intelligent guide for man in the 
pursuit of knowledge. 



74 



CHAPTER IV 

DYNAMICS OF THOUGHT 

The word mind really means a specialized 
self in the mental realm or plane. Con- 
scious mind is the conscious activity of this 
self in his efforts to learn the meaning and 
the nature of the vibrations of mental mat- 
ter, so that he can respond with intelligence. 
On this plane are focused the stimuli from 
the lower planes, and from this plane he 
sends back such answering vibrations as 
later result in physical acts. When the re- 
turn vibrations strike the cortical cells, and 
the physical man is aware of their impact, 
the effect is thought. The definition of 
thought, as generally accepted, is the " ac- 
tion of the mind," and the brain is defined 
as " the instrument of the mind." Thought 
is not generated in the brain; it is only the 
close relation of the mental plane to the 

75 



Life's Response 

physical, and the high evolution of the 
matter of the brain, that makes it possible 
for thought and emotion to blend into act, 
and for act and emotion to impress the re- 
sult on thought. But men think so little 
and, consequently, know so little; it is so 
much easier to believe without question what 
another has accepted. A wise man tells us, 
" that the man who asks us to believe any- 
thing degrades himself, and if we believe 
we are degraded, too." 1 There is a hidden 
truth in the saying, for the belief that rests 
on another's understanding is passive and 
builds nothing into the man; it certainly de- 
grades him in the sense of making him 
lower in development than he would be if he 
studied the law of cause and effect, and 
knew that he is what he is because he has 
been his own creator; that the spring of life 
is in the mental realm, and that the phys- 
ical consciousness can never rise higher than 
its source. Belief is not an action of men- 
tality; it is an excrescence on the mind of 

1 Vivekananda. 

76 



To Consciousness 

man, and it should make him anxious to 
know the truth. 

If man is his own creator, he must have 
within him a power that is both creative 
and directive. The source of this power is 
the Power of the Unmanifested Deity, and, 
like everything else in the universe, can be 
studied only as we apply the Law of Con- 
tinuity and trace back and forth from the 
seen to the unseen. 

Omnipotence is expressed as the Uni- 
verse. The little universe of our planetary 
system is the microscopic edition of the 
whole, and each separate expression of mat- 
ter in this universe is related to the whole 
as a drop of water is related to the ocean. 
If we analyze the drop we analyze the 
ocean, for whatever we learn of any one 
particle of matter, or of spirit, is true of the 
whole. To know God is to know man, and 
to know one's self is to know God. 

When we study the universe we are look- 
ing at phenomena from the mental plane, 
and so limit creation by time, see the ex- 
pression of it in space, and imagine a cause. 

77 



Life's Response 

These are the necessary limitations that be^- 
long to thought. In reality, none of these 
conditions exist above the mental plane, but 
it is a quality of thought to tie new con- 
cepts to old, and to see limitation and causa- 
tion everywhere; so, in this rather difficult 
exposition of life, the study is one of rela- 
tion; it is creation as seen from below the 
phenomena, and not from above. 

Man is living on three planes; his action 
is expressed on the mental as thought, on 
the second plane as desire and emotion, and 
on the physical as body. All the activities 
are gathered by the physical consciousness, 
and blended into the physical man. We 
recognize three corresponding activities for 
the Creator: On the Mental plane, His ac- 
tion is a propulsive force which is creative; 
on the second plane He expresses Will, and 
on the third the Universe, where Divine 
Thought and Will are blended into the phys- 
ical expression of life. 

If God is the whole Universe, and man a 
part of the Universe, then man is a part of 
God, and not a creation that is limited by 

78 



To Consciousness 

time in its beginning or end. He is as much 
a part of the whole Life as the drop of 
water is a part of the whole ocean, and he 
has the Divine presence, power, and knowl- 
edge in the static state within himself, to be 
unfolded through an experience lasting 
from his first differentiation from the 
whole to that expansion of consciousness 
that teaches him that he is one with the 
whole in Absolute life and knowledge. 

Science recognizes no rest in the universe. 
From the planets to a grain of mineral dust 
there is perpetual motion in the atoms, in 
the molecules, and in the mass. Motion be- 
comes manifest only when the motion comes 
in contact with the environment, and then it 
is felt as vibration. All definitions of life 
carry with them the idea of motion. " Life 
is activity." It is the " capability of per- 
forming." It is always the internal re- 
sponse to an external stimulus ; so, transfer- 
ring the scientific data of motion and vibra- 
tion to life, we have the key to incarnation. 
There is only life and always life. When 
the action of life ceases to contact the en- 

79 



Life's Response 

vironment the manifestation of life ceases 
on that plane, but matter of some quality 
is being touched always, and the vibrations 
are coming and going endlessly. 

Life is all of the same substance, and 
starts from the same Source. It all has the 
same destiny : to rise in consciousness to the 
Source from which it came; and the only 
way it can do this is to go through the ex- 
perience of all action, and of all vibration; 
so it starts its education in the densest form 
of the mineral kingdom, and, slowly unfold- 
ing the knowledge and power that is inher- 
ent in it, it builds a better and better form 
for itself; passing slowly onward, through 
incalculable time, it reaches the human king- 
dom as the unevolved man. Here the 
process is repeated life after life, always 
the unfolding of knowledge and power, and 
the building of the better form to express 
the progress, until there is no more to be 
learned on the planes of the human evolu- 
tion. 

The gradual growth of consciousness is 
not apprehended. It corresponds to the 
80 



To Consciousness 

ante-natal life of the babe whose experiences 
are not recognized nor remembered, but the 
experiences of past incarnations are the 
germs of faculties and talents that are our 
present inheritance. Just as the uncon- 
scious mind vibrates on the unborn babe, 
causing the heart to beat and the blood to 
circulate, and arouses a response from many 
an unperceived stimulus, so does the experi- 
ence of the dim past unfold a consciousness 
that includes all knowledge up to the pres- 
ent moment. The memory of the uncon- 
scious mind is " Absolute in promise." It 
contains all that consciousness has responded 
to, and is ever ready, under proper condi- 
tions, to give up its secrets. 

In the last analysis Creator and creation 
mean but one thing: LIFE. The Creator 
is the unmanifested creation, and the crea- 
tion is the manifested Creator. In the 
Lord's prayer, " Thy will be done on earth 
as it is done in heaven," is expressed the 
dynamic force of unmanifested life becom- 
ing manifest. It is a continuity of a king- 
dom of power and of glory from the seen 
81 



Life's Response 

to the unseen. " Even a cursory study of 
the part of the universe in which we find 
ourselves, shows us that one at least of its 
ends — if not its end — is to produce living 
beings of a high intelligence and strong 
will, capable of taking an active part in 
carrying on and guiding the activities of na- 
ture, and co-operating in the general scheme 
of evolution." 1 

In the human kingdom life has reached 
the place where the units of consciousness 
are intelligent and of a strong will, and 
where the incarnating principle has become 
self-conscious, so individualization has come 
about, and man is capable of taking an active 
part, and of co-operating in the general 
scheme of evolution, for, remember, evolu- 
tion belongs to form, and man makes his 
body as he makes any other instrument, to 
answer to the needs of his mind, so the 
mental self lives and moves on the mental 
plane, awakening to new sensations as he 
stirs the matter of the plane, and sending 

1 Annie Besant, " A Study in Consciousness." 
82 



To Consciousness 

the vibrations to the brain to be appropriated 
and understood by the man on earth. 

Thoughts are the physical response to this 
activity. They cannot be borrowed and 
do not depend on book knowledge; each 
man's thoughts are strictly personal, they be- 
long to him alone; he has only so much of 
the plane of mind as he can appropriate, 
and it lies with him to desire knowledge and 
to make the effort to respond to the vibra- 
tions. His limitations are his capacity for 
action. It is very true we can and should 
help each other on this plane, as we help 
on the other planes, but here, as elsewhere, 
the help lies more in the example, in stim- 
ulating an interest in certain lines of in- 
vestigation, but the real work of action and 
of interpretation must be done by each one 
for himself. Each must desire to know, so 
that the vibrations, striking the mental body, 
will be attended to; this awakens an in- 
ternal response that grows, and rapid prog- 
ress is made. 

The translation of mental action into 
thought has been a subject for philosophers. 

83 



Life's Response 

In the Sankhya philosophy, reality belongs 
to both mind and matter, but not until Des- 
cartes gave his famous saying, " I think, 
therefore I am," did the Western world 
have an exponent of the teaching that posi- 
tive knowledge belongs to self -conscious- 
ness. His teaching of innate ideas was op- 
posed by Locke, to whom the human mind 
was a blank at birth, and whose concept of 
knowledge was the experience of sensation, 
and of the reaction to it by the mind. In 
the eighteenth century, Immanuel Kant, 
starting with sensation, goes much deeper 
into the analysis. He acknowledges the 
outward stimulus, but it is the reflection of 
the mind on the stimulus that projects it into 
space, and gives the object as something 
separate from the mind. 1 

The tracing of a given stimulus from the 
body to the mind, and back to the brain to 
be understood, has as its most used illustra- 
tion the new-born babe, for the experience 

1 Culled from an article by Hedwig S. Albarus, 
"The Problem of Reason in Western Philosophy." 
Published in The Theosophist, May, 1910. 

84 



To Consciousness 

of the babe is, in miniature, the experience 
of the race. The first expression of the 
babe is not one of intelligence, but of pure 
sensation. Forced into the world by the 
painful propulsive power of birth, he begins 
the life of separation from the mother with 
a cry of pain. The new world is but a con- 
fusion of sounds and sensations : the first a 
pure sensation, and the succeeding ones 
modified by the impressions produced by the 
first on the nervous system, as well as on 
the consciousness. As his wants are satis- 
fied, pleasure succeeds pain, and the pleas- 
ure-pain consciousness begins to teach the 
lessons of life. In the first alternations of 
pain and pleasure there is no linking of 
cause and effect; intelligence is not shown 
until there is an association of the sensa- 
tion with the object capable of producing it, 
as the satisfaction of hunger with the mother 
who gives him milk. Association implies 
recollection, for, to associate, the child must 
recall a number of sensations and refer them 
to a specific object which is not permanent. 
Kant went one step farther. He saw the 

85 



Life's Response 

necessity of relating both sensation and ob- 
ject to the mind; so, here again, in the heart 
of his philosophy, is a creator and a crea- 
tion. The creator (the self in the mental 
realm) manifested in a world which he has 
projected from his own intellect. 

How different the world is to each of us, 
because of this creative imagination! To 
one it is no more than a place of sensuous 
delight; to another it is a battlefield, where 
the emotions are ever rampant, and the 
wounds are ever in evidence; to the third it 
is a heavenly world of ideals, — the ideals of 
mental vibrations,— too fine, perhaps, to pass 
into physical matter, and to be worked out 
into phenomena, but yet stimulating the 
brain day by day, and arousing the strong 
desire, they promise a satisfaction that is 
sufficient to make any other world undesir- 
able. In all these experiments of materiali- 
zation there are as many specialized crea- 
tions as there are creators, and we are ever 
explaining and trying to make ourselves and 
our world understood, and ever feeling how 
inadequate is the result. 
86 



To Consciousness 

Sensations are necessary to arouse 
thought, but if sensation and consciousness 
were all there were, we would still be in 
the animal kingdom. It is the self-con- 
scious connecting of the sensation with the 
pleasure and the pain that reaches the men- 
tal self. " It is in establishing a conscious 
relation between the Self and the Not-Self 
that the whole future evolution depends, 
and that evolution largely depends on the 
relations becoming more and more numer- 
ous, more and more complicated, and more 
and more accurately observed." 1 

Evolution is a most difficult achievement. 
It requires the persistent activity of an un- 
folding consciousness, and the ever improve- 
ment of the neural energy of the body. To 
the physical man it is the perpetual giving 
of birth to the emotions, and to the con- 
cepts which come from his relation to sen- 
sation and to the mind, and there must be 
some reason why he clings to the body, and 
why he goes through his earthly life un- 

1 Annie Besant 

87 



Life's Response 

daunted by sorrow and sickness, for we all 
know it would be so easy to withdraw, so 
easy to stop breathing, while it takes such 
tremendous energy to go through even the 
act of breathing. Then there is the always 
constant attention that the body must have, 
else it fails us. It is not as though we need 
do something to relieve ourselves of the 
body; all we need to do is to stop the strenu- 
ous effort to keep it, and we slip so surely 
from our contact with earth. 

If in the last analysis Creator and crea- 
tion means LIFE, and if man is a part of the 
manifestation, then man is life, and if the 
Creator's other expression, as known to us, 
is Will, then man must also express, in a 
limited way, this Will. Man is the reflec- 
tion of the Divine will to manifest life. As 
a reflection he must, in his immature way, 
reflect the will-to-live, and this he does 
through his desire nature, which is his lim- 
ited appropriation of the plane of Sensa- 
tion where the Creator is omnipotent. 

Desire grows in the soil of ignorance, but 
it turns toward the Divine will. In the far 
88 



To Consciousness 

future, when knowledge has supplanted ig- 
norance, desire will be transmuted into will, 
and man will be superman; now he desires 
to live for a personal satisfaction, and he 
seeks the " dominion over all things " to 
please himself, not knowing, what experi- 
ence will teach him, that satisfaction lies 
in the realization of the Divine life and 
knowledge. The personal desire for selfish 
satisfaction is a strong factor in this reali- 
zation, for desire for more life, on any of 
the planes, is a basis for self-preservation, 
and gives the self -material to study the 
cause and effect, and to learn the lesson of 
values received. 

Thought depends on sensation for its 
stimulus. Without desire no stimulus 
would arouse the consciousness. Desire is 
responsible for experience. Just as we can 
limit our few years of earth life by refus- 
ing to care for the body, so can we limit the 
experience of those years by stoically re- 
fusing to listen to the desires, and to feel 
the emotions. A limitation of environment 
or a limitation of the activity, either is suf- 

8 9 



Life's Response 

ficient to cramp the life on any of the 
planes. We may be as the stoic and refuse 
to respond to the sensations, fearing pain, 
and, refusing to respond to sensation, we 
lose pleasure as well, for they are only dif- 
ferent aspects of sensation. We may even 
more easily go through life with no plan, 
taking what comes with only an emotional 
response, and making little or no impress 
as a creator. 

In the beginning it was sensation that 
aroused the consciousness. As the abo- 
rigine satisfied his hunger with the game of 
the forest, that necessity had taught him to 
kill, he was satisfied. The sun warmed him 
and the food supplied his need, he made no 
further effort until desire once more im- 
pelled him forth for his own self-preserva- 
tion. Here was an alternation of pleasure 
and pain in the beginning of the human 
kingdom, just as we note it now in the 
babe of civilization, and the first intelligent 
awakening is the same association of hunger 
with the need for food and the effort made 
to obtain and to eat. The difference be- 
90 



To Consciousness 

tween the primeval man and the infant lies, 
not in the steps of the unfoldment, but in 
the slowness with which he learns. The 
primitive man had no mental activity, there 
was little motion on this plane, so almost 
no vibrations came from it to awaken the 
physical consciousness. The brain matter 
was crude and responded slowly to stim- 
ulus from without, as well as to conscious- 
ness from within. The man must learn 
from his own pleasure and pain the law of 
attraction and repulsion. He must seek and 
avoid with intelligence the cause of his own 
sensations. It is the recollections of his 
experience that stir his desires, and it is 
the vibration of his desires that moves him 
to action on the mental plane, and to im- 
pact and to teach the brain matter, so that 
he can bring the conclusions down as 
thought, and aid desire in the effort to ap- 
propriate. 

When desire and effort are sufficiently 
strong to bring satisfaction to the sense na- 
ture, thought begins to influence the desire. 
Hitherto desire had been the stronger, and 

91 



Life's Response 

thought had aided in securing what the man 
wished, but in a time, so long in its years 
that we have no conception of its length, 
mind becomes alert, and pushes its vibra- 
tions through to be reckoned with. Mind 
has now reached that state where it battles 
with desire. Satisfaction is a thing of qual- 
ity, and it must be considered in its large 
effects : Is it a temporary pleasure that may 
later blossom into pain? If so, is it worth 
while to make the effort to secure that 
which is temporary? Would it not be bet- 
ter to use the energy to overcome the desire, 
and to create a higher ideal ? 

In this great war the battles have been 
without number, and they have been fought 
on all the planes. In the beginning, the vic- 
tory meant little more than physical ex- 
istence, but later sensation was recognized 
as adding to or taking from the pleasure 
of that existence, the self began to seek a 
way to perpetuate the pleasure, and thought 
and desire worked together to find the rela- 
tion between the sensation and the object 
that produced it, and the man not only lived 
92 



To Consciousness 

but he experienced the results of the life he 
was living. This experience was not one of 
all pleasure ; it had more of pain than pleas- 
ure, and, as thought strove with desire for 
pleasure, there gradually came to be seen 
that back of pleasure and of pain was a 
cause, that if this cause could be understood 
and controlled, then suffering would cease; 
so the mind became active, and registered its 
vibrations on the nervous system. The fac- 
ulties of attention and concentration were 
encouraged, and comparison and contrast 
with discrimination all began to have a part 
in the struggle between thought and desire. 
Pain is an experience common to all. The 
sorrowing mother, carrying her dead child 
in her arms, who went to the Lord Buddha 
for help, was sent for a 

" Black mustard-seed, a tola ; only mark 
Thou take it not, from any hand or house 
Where father, mother, child or slave hath died." 

She goes forth hopefully to find the mustard- 
seed, but returns sorrowing to say: 

"Between the rain-time and the harvesting, 
Ah, sir, I could not find a single house 

93 



Life's Response 

Where there was mustard-seed and none had died, 
Therefore I left my child, who would not suck 
Nor smile, beneath the wild vines by the stream, 
To seek thy face and kiss thy feet, and pray 
Where I might find this seed and find no death." 
" My sister, thou hast found," the Master said, 
" Searching for what none finds, that bitter balm 
I had to give thee. He thou lovedst slept 
Dead on thy bosom yesterday: to-day 
Thou know'st the whole wide world weeps with 
thy woe." 1 

A common experience denotes a common 
cause. The Buddha was so overwhelmed 
with the pain of the world that he devoted 
his life to the discovery of the cause of 
pain. History tells us that under the Bodhi 
tree the solution came to him that pain was 
the result of experience, and that the cause 
of experience was desire; therefore, the ex- 
tinction of desire meant peace. He did not 
teach that we should stoically refuse to 
desire and hope to gain Nirvana; the desire 
for the everlasting peace is cause for a new 
experience, and the pain continues; what he 
did teach was to so ally desire with thought 

1 Sir Edwin Arnold, " The Light of Asia." 

94 



To Consciousness 

that man would learn his lessons quickly and 
finish the experiences; that the desire-to- 
live for new experiences would be absorbed 
in the will-to-live without experiences, for 
in the expansion of consciousness is the 
eternal knowledge that leaves nothing more 
to be desired. 

It is thought applied to experience that 
sees cause and effect. We each live in the 
chain of causality. What we did has linked 
the past to the present, and what we do 
forges the chain for the future. It is not a 
hopeless condition at all, for there is no 
arbitrary reward or punishment for our 
acts. The experiences we have and that 
make us individualized beings, are the ex- 
periences that all creation must go through 
when the creator is trying to bring forth an 
ideal. Every mistake leads to new thought, 
and thought means a new effort, which is a 
cause set in motion, and which brings on the 
physical plane a better creation, on the plane 
of sensation a higher desire, and on the men- 
tal plane a greater dynamic force for the 
next problem. It is not the causes of the 

95 



Life's Response 

present incarnation only that we have to 
meet, but those thoughts, desires, and emo- 
tions whose effects have not reached us, 
through lack of responsive conditions or of 
environment, will weave their effects into 
our lives and characters in the only way that 
could increase our knowledge. 

This study of thought power is so meta- 
physical that, to one who has not kept pace 
with the psychological science of the day, it 
will seem either arrant nonsense or else a 
theory (revelation) that is as yet without 
experience, but it is not so. In most of 
our colleges are laboratories where the pro- 
fessors are experimenting on the mind, test- 
ing the strength of the different emotions 
and of thought, and where the mental shock 
of varied stimuli is registered on special de- 
vices by electricity. As there is little time 
in one life to store such vast knowledge in 
the mind, and to make the body responsive 
to the currents of the stimuli and to con- 
sciousness, there seems to be a proof of re- 
incarnation aside from logic and revealed 
teaching, for even though we fail to re- 

9 6 



To Consciousness 

call the experience of other lives, there are 
the records in bone and tissue of another 
body, whose functions have been outgrown, 
just as there are records of instincts and 
mental habits in the subconscious regions of 
the mind that no longer belong to the upper 
consciousness. 

Now as to how man can become an actor 
in the general scheme of evolution by his 
mental unfoldment, I can best answer by 
quoting Mrs. Besant once more. She says : 
" You know, by looking at the world around 
you, how enormously the intelligence of 
man co-operating with nature may quicken 
natural processes, and the working of in- 
telligence is as natural as anything else. In 
dealing with the unfolding of conscious- 
ness, we are in the same department of 
applied sciences as, let us say, is the scientific 
farmer or gardener when he applies the nat- 
ural laws of selection to breeding. The 
farmer or gardener cannot transcend the 
laws of nature, nor can he work against 
them. He has no other laws of nature to 
work with, save the universal laws by which 

97 



Life's Response 

nature is evolving forms around us, and yet 
he does, in a few years, what nature takes 
perhaps hundreds of thousands of years to 
do. And how? By applying human intel- 
ligence to choose the laws to serve him, and 
to neutralize the laws that hinder. Out of 
the wild rose of the hedge has been evolved 
every rose of the garden. Many-petaled 
roses are but the result of the scientific cul- 
ture of the five-petaled rose of the hedge- 
row, the wild product of nature. The gar- 
dener who chooses the pollen from one plant 
and places it on the carpels of another, is 
simply doing deliberately what is done every 
day by the bee and the fly. But he chooses 
his plants, and he chooses those that have 
the qualities he wants intensified, and from 
these again he chooses those that show the 
desired qualities still more clearly, until he 
has produced a flower so different from the 
original stock, that only by tracing it back 
can you tell the stock from whence it came. 
So it is in the application of the laws of 
psychology (systematized knowledge of the 
unfolding of consciousness applied to the 

9 8 



To Consciousness 

individual.) There are many laws. You 
can choose those you require, you can evade 
those you do not require, you can utilize 
those you need, and thus you can bring about 
the result that nature, without that applica- 
tion of human intelligence, cannot so swiftly 
effect." 

We know this is true. Nature distributes 
her wealth everywhere, and is not concerned 
with the individual. It is the species she 
evolves slowly, step by step. The bee and 
the fly in the effort for self-preservation are 
the unconscious means of perpetuating the 
plant. They have no knowledge with which 
to choose the qualities of the plant they per- 
petuate in their search for food, and they 
gather pollen and shake it on carpel without 
choice or plan. How different the co-opera- 
tion of man. First, as was natural, he 
turned his intelligence toward subjugating 
the external. He now is conqueror of land, 
water, and of air. He fashions the metals 
into tools for his use. He grows new 
plants and new vegetables in new ways. 
Animals are domesticated, and life, from 

99 



Life's Response to Consciousness 

the far-off starry heavens down to the drop 
of water, gives up its secrets to his tele- 
scope and to his microscope. But this is 
only preliminary to the great work of life, 
and now he must undertake the far greater 
achievement of learning to control himself. 
He must study cause and effect in relation 
to his thought, his emotions, and his acts. 
He must know without doubt where to ap- 
ply the remedy when he recognizes the mis- 
takes he is making. He must shake out the 
coarse atoms of his several bodies by re- 
fusing to respond to low thoughts, impure 
desires, and depleting emotions, and he may 
learn to speak to the living cells of his phys- 
ical body, and control the organs and tis- 
sues, regulating the circulation and nerve 
currents as his intelligence directs. 



ioo 



CHAPTER V 

THE CELLS OF THE BODY 

In the preceding chapters we undertook 
to prove, by experience (which includes the 
experiments of science) and the Law of 
Continuity, that certain revealed teachings 
are facts. That " all is life, and every atom 
of even mineral dust is a life;" that " like 
produces like;" that "Absolute Life can- 
not produce a lifeless atom;" that " every- 
thing lives and is conscious;" that the 
" Universe is worked and guided from with- 
in outward, and man is the living witness ;" 
and that " no change in man's body can take 
place unless provoked by an inward im- 
pulse." There were sufficient references to 
our own Scriptures to show that there was 
no desire to supplant them by any foreign 
teaching, but, rather, the purpose to call at- 

IOI 



Life's Response 

tention to what our Bible teaches, in lan- 
guage that would arouse and hold the at- 
tention and induce a further study of such 
facts as The Christ, Shri Krishna, and the 
Buddha considered of vital importance to 
ALL humanity. 

Every basic statement contains within it- 
self the argument and the conclusion. In 
studying the cells of the body I can in- 
troduce nothing that is not in my basic state- 
ment of the Universal Life and its Con- 
sciousness, and I can take nothing from it. 
The argument and the conclusion are all in 
the quotations from revelation that have 
been selected. I can but lead the argument 
from point to point until the circle is com- 
plete. 

The study of cells belongs to the science 
of histology, that of the body to physiology, 
but as we are seeking to know both cells 
and body in a more intimate sense than that 
of automatic particles that act and react as 
an engine when the fires are lighted, we will 
have to carry the metaphysical thought into 
the study. As we passed back and 'forth 
102 



To Consciousness 

from the Universal to the individual, using 
the Law of Continuity for a guide, so now 
we must pass back and forth from the in- 
dividual to the cells and the body, and the 
Law of Continuity will once more be the 
guide. 

In studying man we recognized that he 
had life, consciousness, and form, and life 
was defined as the internal response to the 
external stimuli, consciousness as the aware- 
ness of life, and form as matter embodying 
the life. The cell life we are now to study 
is a very low expression of the Universal 
life, but it cannot be a part of the expressed 
Universe without the trinity of life, con- 
sciousness, and form. 

Professor James tells us : " We have a lot 
of beginnings of knowledge, made in differ- 
ent places, and kept separate from each 
other for merely practical convenience, un- 
til, with later growth, they may be run into 
one body of truth." No problem can be 
solved by any one science. In this investiga- 
tion of life we need all the help we can get. 
Metaphysics is too ethereal to be absolutely 
103 



Life's Response 

trusted; it works in the poorly explored 
heights of the upper mental plane, and needs 
often to be held in check by psychology, 
whose scope is so contracted it is little more 
than a link between metaphysics and physi- 
ology. Without metaphysics we could not 
go beyond states of consciousness, and the 
present state would be the result of the last 
series of thought, and the creator of the 
next. There is no necessity for an ego, 
a soul, or an individuality; this science be- 
gins and ends with thought. It needs meta- 
physics to find the thinker, and it needs 
physiology to find the nervous system, with- 
out which there would be no understand- 
ing of how thought and emotion could be 
unified into the act. The brain and nerves 
are of supreme importance to the body, and 
they are as necessary for arousing the phys- 
ical consciousness as are the messages that 
call to them for service. If we are to un- 
derstand the body which is responsive to the 
mental activity, we must know a little of 
the histology of the cells which make the 
body, and, lastly, we must see through the 
104 



To Consciousness 

eyes of the microscopist something of their 
actions as intelligent units. 

Physiology is concerned with the organs, 
the tissues, and the fluids of the physical 
body, but, as an intelligent understanding 
of any organism implies an understanding 
of the individuals of the organism, we will 
begin with a microscopic study of the cells 
of the body. 

According to C. Francke (1891) " there 
are in the entire body of a full-grown per- 
son four trillion cells," and probably 
" twenty-two trillion five hundred million 
blood cells (Ramacharaka gives the number 
of red blood cells as seventy-five billion), so 
there are an estimated total of twenty-six 
trillion five hundred million cells. 

As unprepared tissue is placed under the 
glass, all that is seen is a " transparent 
structureless semi-fluid particle of matter." 
This matter has varied names, the two 
most common being protoplasm and cyto- 
plasm. When the tissue is prepared, that is, 
when it is washed with a re-agent, usually 
carmine dissolved in alcohol, another factor 

105 



Life's Response 

becomes visible, known as the nucleus. All 
observers see the protoplasm and the 
nucleus, and, from the varied text-books 
and the popular writings, there are few con- 
tradictions in what is seen, but there are 
three important explanations of the phenom- 
ena which differ widely. 

The exponents of automaticity believe that 
" Each living cell in the long run is but a 
complex aggregate of molecules, composed, 
in their turn, of chemical elements, and if 
we suppose this whole set of atoms at rest in 
equilibrium at any moment, no change can 
be started in the cell from inside; in other 
words, it will possess no spontaneity/' * 

The theory of reaction (reflexion) is 
more progressive, as the following quota- 
tion will show. Donaldson says : u In the 
last analysis, however, the incoming stimuli 
appear as the cause of all our actions. The 
chain of events is often long and hard to 
follow ; but so much evidence stands on the 
side of the reflex nature of all actions, that 

a H. Newell Martin, "The Human Body." 
1 06 



To Consciousness 

the hypothesis of automatism is no longer 
necessary." * 

That the phenomena of cell action are the 
result of a responsive consciousness to the 
stimuli is the other explanation, and the 
conclusion is concisely expressed by Nichol- 
son in the following words: " I cannot fail 
to recognize that there exists in every living 
being some actual force independent of and 
superior to the protoplasm of which its sub- 
stance is composed." 2 

Through the study of physiology we may 
know the organic structure of the body, 
where the organs lie, how they should func- 
tion, and, when the activity is abnormal, 
whether they need stimulation or inhibition. 
As the body is an assembly of organs, and 
the organs are grouped cells of varying 
importance, we can make a few statements 
that are self-evident: The action of the 
body is the resultant action of the cells of 
the body, that the growth and development 

1 H. H. Donaldson, " The Growth of the Brain." 

2 Professor Nicholson, " The Physical Basis of 
Life." 

107 



Life's Response 

of the body are the resultant action of the 
growth and development of the cells of the 
body, that the normal and abnormal con- 
ditions of the body are also the resultant ac- 
tions of the normal and abnormal condition 
of the cells of the body; so, in the final 
analysis of the life and consciousness ex- 
pressed by the body, the life and conscious- 
ness will be in the cells of the body. 

From this view of the physical life ex- 
pressing itself intelligently through the cells 
of the physical organism, we have an exact 
copy of the Universal Life expressing itself 
through the material universe. Here, in 
microscopic exactness, is a cell, a complete 
organism, with an independent life and con- 
sciousness, which, while under the control 
of mind, is obliged to co-operate with mind 
for its own preservation. Man's body is a 
field of evolution for this form of life, and 
its consciousness unfolds under the same 
laws that the consciousness of man unfolds 
in the universe of which he is a part. There 
is a certain care and responsibility for man 
in the care and culture of his body, aside 
108 



To Consciousness 

from the selfish desire to add to his pleas- 
ure and ability on earth, for it is he who 
furnishes the mental and physical environ- 
ment for the cells whose life in the body 
depends on their ability to adapt themselves 
to the conditions which he creates. 

The cells, as seen by the microscopist, are 
minute granular masses of non-structural 
matter, with a diameter of from 1-250 to 
1-2000 of an inch. Within this mass is a 
central portion not so granular, and often 
imbedded are one or even two smaller bodies. 
The smaller, more fluid centers are called 
nucleoli, the larger center nucleus, and the 
forming and formed matter protoplasm 
(cytoplasm). 

Martin observes (1896) " that cells fre- 
quently change their form independently of 
any recognizable external cause, while a 
dead mass at rest and unacted on from out- 
side remains at rest." In the same text-book 
he says of the cell known as the white cor- 
puscle, that the " nucleus exhibits of itself 
certain properties which are distinctive of 
all living things as compared with inanimate 
109 



Life's Response 

objects." He then enters into an argument 
to prove that the cells, which he observes 
to " exhibit certain properties distinctive 
of all living things, and which frequently 
change their forms independently of any 
recognizable external cause," are not living, 
and he explains the contradiction by as- 
suming that the cells are of such unstable 
equilibrium that an external cause so slight 
as to escape observation may set going in 
them a very marked series of changes. 

Those who believe that automatism or re- 
flex action is sufficient to explain the 
phenomena seen under the glass, have no 
words with which to express what they see 
other than words of life and death. It is 
necessary for them to explain, that what all 
physiologists call the " living cells " are pe- 
culiar, inasmuch as they are not living but 
inanimate, and that the properties in cells 
that prove life in all other organisms, in this 
one and only exception prove automa- 
ticity. 

Donaldson tells us that H it has been re- 
peatedly shown, that if from a cell the 
no 



To Consciousness 

nucleus be removed, the cytoplasm ceases 
to grow, and slowly dies." One has to 
be a mental acrobat to keep in mind that a 
living cell is not alive, and that an auto- 
matic cell dies. 

In the middle of the last century, Lionel 
S. Beale, the great English biologist and 
microscopist, gave the result of years of 
study to the scientific world. He tells us: 
" When tissue, washed and prepared, is 
placed under the microscope, the bioplasm 
(nucleus) will exhibit certain properties that 
are distinctive of all living things as com- 
pared with inanimate objects." 

I have quoted Beale and Martin, whose 
words are identical, to show that the cells 
are acting to-day in the same purposeful way 
as a half -century ago. The cells and their 
actions are facts: the true explanation to 
Martin is automatism, to Donaldson reac- 
tion, while Beale was so impressed with the 
intelligent action of the nucleus that he re- 
named it bioplasm, from two Greek words, 
bios meaning life, and plasma, form. After 
years of close and patient study he ventures 
in 



Life's Response 

the suggestion that " Mind " is back of the 
phenomena. 

The cell, as the unit of life, has its aspect 
of body and mind in the nucleus and proto- 
plasm. The nucleus is the cell mechanism 
that is responsive to the external and in- 
ternal vibrations, and the protoplasm is the 
body that is created by the activity of the 
nucleus. 

Growth is a word that we associate with 
life. Martin tells us that a cell grows by 
" taking up materials from outside and 
building them into its own peculiar sub- 
stance. This result is not an accretion, but 
the chemical elements, either free or com- 
bined, are rechemicalized by the cell, and 
made part and parcel of itself." 1 

Beale gives many pages to growth, mi- 
nutely describing the protoplasm that is the 
form, and how the nucleus watches for the 
pabulum (cell food) as it is carried by the 
blood for distribution, and selects from 
the supply certain particles for its own 

"Martin, "The Human Body." Quoted with 
omissions. 

112 



To Consciousness 

sustenance, and rejects that which is un- 
suitable. He describes how the nucleus 
draws or sucks the pabulum through the 
protoplasm, and incorporates it into its own 
self, and how, later, the outer walls of proto- 
plasm are cast off as waste matter, and the 
older particles of nucleus become more 
granular and incorporate in the later formed 
protoplasm. To make the picture more 
complete, he describes how the cell, coming 
in contact with the pabulum, throws 
processes of itself around the particle, and 
in this manner absorbs it. 

Donaldson, while believing that reflex ac- 
tion is sufficient to explain all phenomena, 
writes that, " whether growth depends on 
number or size of cells, the conditions con- 
trolling both processes are mainly resident 
in the cells themselves/' * 

" The white corpuscles of the blood are 
most fascinating under the glass. Each is a 
soft mass of protoplasm with a nucleus. As 
these pale corpuscles have the power of 

"Donaldson, "The Growth of the Brain." 
113 



Life's Response 

slowly changing their form, they seem much 
like one of the uni-cellular animals known 
as the amoebae. At one moment a pale cor- 
puscle will be seen as a spheroidal mass; a 
few seconds later processes will be seen radi- 
ating from this, and, soon after, these 
processes may be retracted and others 
thrown out; so that the corpuscle goes on 
changing its shape. ... By thrusting out 
a process on one side, then drawing the rest 
of the body up to it, and then sending out 
a process again on the same side, the cor- 
puscle can slowly change its place and creep 
across the field of the microscope." * 

As Beale studies the cells for days at a 
time, his marvel grows at the wonderful re- 
sponse he sees. to the conditions, and he 
interrupts his cold technical science to say 
that, " Although plants and animals have 
been ofttimes compared with machines, no 
one has yet taught exactly in what partic- 
ulars any plant or animal is like any ma- 
chine. For my part, I cannot discover the 

1 Martin, " The Human Body." 
114 



To Consciousness 

slightest resemblance in origin, form, com- 
position, or mode of action. I have looked 
over and over again at the matter of the 
living plant and animal in which, or by 
which, the wonderful changes characteristic 
of it are effected in health or disease, but I 
have seen nothing save a little transparent, 
structureless, colorless, semi-fluid stuff. I 
have even seen this move. While under my 
observation, various substances of complex 
chemical composition may be formed 
through its agency, but the highest magni- 
fying powers do not enable me to form any 
conception concerning how this may be done. 
The living matter may increase in size, and 
I may see it divide and subdivide so as to 
give rise to other masses like itself. But 
how it grows, how it forms, and how or 
why it divides, I cannot tell. I know, how- 
ever, it does not move like any mechanism 
of which we have experience, for it moves 
in any and every direction, and every mi- 
nute portion exhibits movements of its own 
accord, not from being pushed or pulled by 
others. The parts of a machine are moved. 

ii5 



Life's Response 

The living matter does not grow like crystal, 
for the stuff of which it is made cannot be 
detected in the solution around it, nor in 
the matter deposited particle after particle 
upon its surface. Neither does it produce 
chemical compounds like the chemist, for, 
as has been shown, there is nothing like a 
laboratory, chemical apparatus, or chemist 
there." * 

And again Beale says : " We know and 
admit that physical forces are at work in 
the living body, but ask, is there not yet 
another internal force or power at work in 
the living body which is not physical nor 
chemical ? Is not the potential energy of a 
given weight of fat or muscle exactly the 
same in a dead body as in a living one? 
How, then, can potential energy be the same 
as vital force ? " 

Before any argument can be had, even 
with one's self, as to whether the cell is 
alive, there must be a definition of life that 
will decide as to its fitness to life. So far 

1 Lionel S. Beale, "Protoplasm." 
Il6 



To Consciousness 

as observation goes, the cell meets the re- 
quirements of the definition we started with 
in the first chapter. We ask no more of it 
than to give an internal response to an ex- 
ternal stimulus, and it will fall into the class 
that Herbert Spencer calls life, and defines 
as correspondence of an organism to its en- 
vironment. It is not a highly evolved life, 
and it is not self-conscious, probably only 
semi-conscious, but if it has any internal 
power of controlling itself and conditions, — 
and, remember, Donaldson says, " the power 
of controlling ... is mainly resident in 
the cell itself/' — it has a degree of life and 
consciousness that will include it within the 
manifestations of Universal life. 

That which means life to man means no 
less than life to the cell, for Nature ex- 
presses her will through laws that carry 
from realm to realm. The cell acts, it ex- 
presses energy. This response is inherent 
in the cell (and there is no question of this 
among the most extreme that argue against 
life), therefore the cell meets the conditions 
of life. 

117 



Life's Response to Consciousness 

Here, then, in cell matter, is the secret of 
physical life. The cells, of from 1-250 to 
1-2000 of an inch in diameter, and estimated 
at twenty-six trillion five hundred million, 
are coterminous with every part of the 
body. Each one is a minute granular mass 
of non-structural matter, so that, if it were 
possible to prepare the body as tissue is pre- 
pared, and view it under the microscope, the 
body would be seen as semi-fluid cells of so 
little substance that each vibration playing 
on the nucleus would meet with response. 



118 



CHAPTER VI 

CELLS; GROUPING AND ACTION 

The cell is the structural unit that is the 
physical basis of all life. To the chemist 
it is certain proportions of carbon, hydro- 
gen, oxygen, and nitrogen. To the micros- 
copist it is of the nature of albumin, a 
clear structureless jelly-like substance. It 
is a well-known fact to embryologists, that 
the germ of the tree, the dog, and the man, 
in their earliest stages, are indistinguishable. 
Tree, dog, and man start life at the same 
point, and grow in the same manner, the 
difference being that the tree belongs to the 
vegetable kingdom, while the dog has ad- 
vanced to the animal kingdom, and man has 
progressed still further. 

Man not only is rooted in spirit, but also 
in matter. As spirit, he has come from 
119 



Life's Response 

God, and as spirit he returns to God, but 
in his long journey he passes through mat- 
ter (which is the visible side of spirit), and 
in his body he carries the photograph of all 
that embodied life, even before the soul be- 
came the incarnating principle. Haeckel 
says, " the embryo is the epitome of the 
race," and Lefevre says, " is not man in the 
uterus a simple cell, a vegetable with three 
or four leaflets, a tadpole with branchiae, a 
mammal with a tail, and, lastly, a primate 
and a biped? " 

If there were no intelligence in the cell, 
how could this be ? What power does autom- 
atism or even reflection exert, that presses 
forward an inanimate cell to embody life in 
its different stages, that holds one cell down 
to the vegetable manifestation, another to 
the animal, and allows another to go 
into the human kingdom? It cannot be 
chemical, for each cell is composed of pre- 
cisely the same chemical elements. If it 
be caloric energy, or if it lies in the nutritive 
powers, the question has gone but one step 
back, and why heat, or desire for food, 
120 



To Consciousness 

should incite a response again brings the 
question of life and consciousness into the 
argument. 

The difficulty of studying anything phys- 
ical, aside from its ensouling principle, is 
insurmountable. It begins nowhere, and 
ends nowhere. Unless we see the body as 
an expression of life, it lies outside law. 
Huxley saw the difficulty, and wrote " that 
we know more of mind than we do of 
body." 

That that which is thought of as purely 
physical is an impenetrable mystery, will 
be recognized by a study of the cell under- 
going its diverse changes from a bit of 
protoplasm to the end it has in view. The 
microscopist tells us : " That there is, indeed, 
a period in the development of every tissue 
and every living thing known to us when 
there are actually no structural peculiarities 
whatever, when the whole organism consists 
of transparent, structureless semi-fluid bio- 
plasm; when it would not be possible to dis- 
tinguish the growing moving matter which 
was to evolve the oak from that which was 
121 



Life's Response 

the germ of a vertebrate animal. Nor can 
any difference be discerned between the bi- 
oplasmic matter of the lowest, simplest epi- 
thelial scale of man's organism and that 
from which the nerve cells of his brain are 
to be evolved. Neither by studying bio- 
plasm under the microscope nor by any kind 
of physical or chemical investigation known, 
can we form any notion of the nature of the 
substance which is to be formed by the 
bioplasm, or what will be the ordinary re- 
sults of living/' * 

The idea of intelligence in the cell will 
solve the enigma without violence. The 
nucleus is the physical mechanism for both 
the life and consciousness, the protoplasm 
is the form. Through the nucleus comes 
such a form of life as lies in the conscious- 
ness, and that form is expressed by evolu- 
tion. In man's body the evolution may 
stop at the hepatic cell, or the conscious- 
ness may carry it forward to the group of 
brain cells. 

^eale, "Bioplasm." 
122 



To Consciousness 

I have no information of the past or 
future life of the cell. I have seen it stated 
that its evolution is on another line from 
that of the human, but that little or nothing 
is known of its past or future history. It 
is everywhere recognized as the unit of 
physical life, which would place it in the 
physical universe, and bring it under the 
laws of physicality. Whatever intelligence 
it expressed would be appropriated from the 
Universal intelligence, whatever power it 
exerted would be an expression of the Om- 
nipotent power, and its substance would be 
the Divine life. 

The body of man starts from such an 
unit, from a single nucleated cell called the 
ovum. When this is fertilized, it divides, 
giving rise to a mass of similar units called 
the morulae. At first there is no recog- 
nizable order, only increase in the mass by 
growth and division of cells, but soon 
" Groups of cells, ceasing to grow and multi- 
ply like their parents, begin to grow in ways 
peculiar to themselves, and so come 
to differ both from the original cells of 
123 



Life's Response 

the morula and from the cells of other 
groups." x 

In Huxley's "Lay Sermons" we have a 
word picture of the development of the em- 
bryonic puppy. He says: "Strange possi- 
bilities lie dormant in that semi-fluid 
globule. Let a moderate supply of warmth 
reach its watery cradle, and the plastic mat- 
ter undergoes changes so rapid and yet so 
purposeful in their succession, that we 
can only compare them to those operated 
by a skilled modeler upon a formless lump 
of clay. As with an invisible trowel, the 
mass is divided and subdivided into smaller 
and smaller portions, until it is reduced to 
an aggregation of granules not too large to 
build withal the finest fabric of the nascent 
organism. And then it is as though a del- 
icate finger traced out a line to be occupied 
by the spinal column, and molded the con- 
tour of the body, pinching up the head at 
one end, the tail at the other, and fashion- 
ing flank and limb into due proportions in so 

1 Martin. 
124 



To Consciousness 

artistic a way that, after watching the 
process hour by hour, one is almost involun- 
tarily possessed by the notion that some 
more subtle aid to vision than an achromatic 
would show the hidden artist with his plan 
before him, striving with skillful manipula- 
tions to perfect his work." 

In the embryonic cell there are two 
specializations, the body or soma, and the 
germ plasm or reproductive element. The 
body is transitory; the germ plasm con- 
tinues from generation to generation. In 
the developing embryo " certain of the cells 
are early set aside to form the reproductive 
elements, and around these the remaining 
cells build a protecting body." 1 

The marvelous working of this plasm is 
so wonderful that the greatest minds of the 
world have studied it for years, and from 
the study two theories have been advanced in 
explanation. Darwin's theory of Pangen- 
esis was, that the embryological cell is " the 
essence or extract of all the other cells of 

1 Donaldson, " Growth of the Brain." 
125 



Life's Response 

the organism, and faculties acquired by the 
organism can therefore be transmitted to 
the offspring;" while Weismann's theory of 
the Continuity of Germ Plasm is, that " the 
cells of the organism do not contribute any- 
thing to the germinal plasm, and, therefore, 
faculties acquired by the organism cannot 
be transmitted from parent to offspring/' 

As these two theories have a very prac- 
tical bearing on heredity, they are of inter- 
est to each of us. If this cell, in which the 
physical body is latent, is permeated with 
the mental and physical essence of the par- 
ent, it is bound in its development from 
ovum to morula, and from morula to body, 
to transmit the peculiarities of its inherent 
nature, and man, after coming into incarna- 
tion, is the slave of a body that arbitrarily 
limits the expression of his life. This is 
certainly a most important question, and 
the effort to conquer the faults of disposi- 
tion, the lack of talent, or a bodily dis- 
order, depends largely on how much the con- 
ditions in which man finds himself are be- 
lieved to be the harvest of past sowing, and 
126 



To Consciousness 

how much the inevitable transmission of 
pain and sorrow from a line of ances- 
tors. 

With these two theories, so exactly op- 
posite, explaining the problems of physical, 
mental, and moral peculiarities, scientific re- 
search increased, and, in the present century, 
the majority of opinion is with Weismann, 
for the microscope has shown that the germ 
cell precedes the soma " and, upon the 
formation of the embryo, migrates into it." 
So that, " in development, there is no inher- 
itance or handing on of anything at all from 
one Metazoan individual of one generation 
to its offspring, a Metazoan individual of 
the next generation. Embryologically we 
have no ancestors, no parents (except uni- 
cellular ones), and no offspring. In this 
way it is seen that a new conception of the 
nature of what we term heredity is 
needed." 1 

Professor Allen, of our own country, was 
among the first to express his belief that the 

1 Dr. John Breard, of Edinburgh. 
127 



Life's Response 

" primitive sex-cells are derived directly 
from the undifferentiated embryonic cells, 
reserved exclusively for this destiny at an 
early stage of development. ,, 

From India comes the same teaching, not 
given as the result of experience, but as a 
revealed teaching, which says that : " These 
germinal cells do not have their origin at 
all in the body of the individual, but pro- 
ceed directly from the ancestral cell, passed 
from father to son through long genera- 
tions." x 

The old idea of heredity has another 
opponent, — Dr. Woods Hutchinson, — and 
his argument has another basis altogether. 
He says in effect, that disease, nine times 
out of ten, is an acquired character, hence, 
instead of the probability being that it would 
be inherited, the balance of evidence to date 
points in exactly the opposite direction. 
" Another fundamental fact which renders 
the inheritance of disease upon a priori 
grounds improbable, and upon practical 

1 Quotations on germ plasm are largely taken 
from an article by Louise C. Appel, F. R. S. L. 

128 



To Consciousness 

grounds extremely doubtful," he says, is 
" that characters or peculiarities, in order 
to be inherited, certainly for more than a 
few generations, must be beneficial and help- 
ful in the struggle; a moment's reflection 
will show this to be mathematically neces- 
sary, in that any family or race which tended 
to inherit defects and injurious characters, 
would go rapidly down in the struggle for 
survival, and become extinct. An inher- 
ited disease of any seriousness could not 
run for more than two or three generations 
for the reason that, by the end of that time, 
there would be no family left for it to run 
in/' 

The embryological cell (germ plasm) is 
not only interesting, but its importance is 
of great moment, not only to the body, but 
to man himself as a unit of consciousness. 
On the determination of its independence of 
the other cells comes a different explanation 
of life. If this cell does not draw nourish- 
ment from the body of the individual, and 
if it is set apart from the other cells by a 
protecting wall, then man can no longer 
129 



Life's Response 

shift the responsibility of life's problems to 
fate, to environment, or to ancestral traits. 
When he reads, " The sins of the fathers 
shall descend to the third and fourth gen- 
eration," he will recall that bit of philosophy, 
" The child is father to the man," and, if 
he believes in reincarnation, he will under- 
stand its deep truth. Man is his own 
father. In each life he sows seed for a 
future harvest, and he returns, a child, to 
inherit the income. " God is not mocked : 
for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he 
also reap." x This understanding gives a 
feeling of perfect justice, which takes the 
sting from the sorrows and suffering of our 
evolution, and will make us careful how we 
walk the narrow path, as no other teaching 
can. Each of us is the sum-total of all we 
ever have been. Such causes as we started 
in the past, that have not been met hitherto, 
good or bad, will descend to us, and in this 
life or a future one we will pay " to the ut- 
most farthing." But there is no medium 

1 Galatians 6 : 7. 
130 



To Consciousness 

through which we can harvest another's 
crop. " Heredity is from within, environ- 
ment from without," but even the environ- 
ment is of our own sowing, for we are each 
in the place where we belong. Heredity and 
environment are but tags, which determine 
our destination up to the present, and from 
where we prepare ourselves for the next 
stage. 

In enlarging on the germ plasm, my prin- 
cipal reason has been to emphasize the in- 
telligence of the cell. When embryologists 
of England, Scotland, and America prove 
the teachings of the old Aryans by finding 
" One infinitesimal cell, about as large as a 
fine cambric needle, out of millions of others, 
at work in the formation of an organism, 
alone and unaided determining, by means of 
constant segmentation and multiplication, the 
correct image of the future man or animal, 
in its physical, mental, and psychic charac- 
teristics," * they cannot long hold to the 
theory of automatic or reflex action as a 

x " Secret Doctrine." 
131 



Life's Response 

sufficient reason for the marvels seen under 
the microscope. 

If we stopped the argument at the point 
of the development of an organism from 
a single germ of living matter, there would 
be little that is new, for, so far, it is not in- 
consistent with Haeckel's materialistic teach- 
ing of epigenesis. But a monistic idea of 
life need not have insensate matter for its 
base. If, as Haeckel says, " heredity is the 
memory of the molecules of the cells, and 
variability their power of perception/' then 
there must be something preceding even the 
first molecule, and it must impose something 
to be remembered in the primitive atom that 
is through generations to stamp this secret 
of evolution on the visible shell of life. 

Intelligence is varied in cell life. Ever) 
physiology teaches that the mass of cell^ 
arrange themselves in specialized groups for 
the physiological labor of the body. Tissue, 
bone, muscle, nerve, and blood cell, each 
finds its place, and, through the life of the 
body, co-operate in its activity. Each of 
these cells is capable of caring for itself, yet 
132 



To Consciousness 

they group for mutual benefit and specialize 
for work. 

The whole body is a mass of living 
nuclei. Starting from the embryonic cell, 
the living matter begins a network that in- 
cludes and unites every cell of the organism 
into a living body. This network, accord- 
ing to the older histologists, was a physical 
association of cells; the more modern 
writers, however, do not agree that the cells 
are structurally united, but they do agree 
that the cells are so related that a nervous 
impulse has no trouble in passing across any 
interval that there may be. 

Dr. Wythe tells us that in the particle 
or thread of nucleus there is an inherent 
movement in the molecules, and if such a 
particle is changing its form, that a relatively 
slow current will be seen in the mass under 
the microscope of granules accidentally im- 
bedded in the nucleus, which are carried 
along by the current. 

" As the passengers in a broad street 
swarm together, so do the granules in one 
of the broader threads make their way by 

133 



Life's Response 

one another, ofttimes stopping and hesitat- 
ing* y et always pursuing a determinate di- 
rection corresponding to the long axis of 
the thread. They frequently become sta- 
tionary in the middle of the course, and then 
turn around, but the greater number pass 
to the extreme end of the thread, and then 
reverse the direction of their movement. 
It cannot be doubted that these continuous 
motions depend on vital processes in the 
cells. At all events, we are acquainted with 
no analogous phenomena in unorganized 
bodies." * This stream of living nucleus is 
enough to account for intelligence in every 
part of the body. Always through the 
organs the little nuclei are busy, responding 
to the stimuli and building their own little 
protoplasmic forms in a way that means 
health or disease to the body. 

The disease of an organ is the disease of 
the cells of the organ. The general work 
is interrupted, and other cells not familiar 
with the duties have to function in their 

1 Striker's " Histology. 
134 



To Consciousness 

place; some help may be expected from the 
undeveloped cells, which form the undiffer- 
entiated tissues, but as these are unused 
to the work, they soon break down, and 
the whole organ suffers and the body is in 
danger. 

Some of the cell activities for self- 
preservation are most intelligent. At the 
present time Professor Paul Ehrlich, at 
Frankfort-on-the-Main, is interested in some 
of the wonderful devices by means of which 
the cell makes itself immune from poisons. 
He knew, in common with other histologists, 
that if a part of a cell is injured, and the 
injury is not too great, the cell repairs it- 
self, and also that the amount of repair 
always exceeds the damage. In his studies 
he theorizes the living cell as having in- 
dividual peculiarities of conformation that 
make it possible, or impossible, as the case 
may be, for various substances floating in the 
blood to combine with them. The essence 
of his theory is, that each cell possesses 
many receptors of different characters, each 
adapted to receive atoms of a different sub- 

133 



Life's Response 

stance. Under normal conditions the recep- 
tors take in the pabulum for cell food, but, 
under abnormal conditions, they also take 
in toxins to the detriment of the cell. When 
the toxin enters the body in small quantities 
it combines with the proper receptor, and 
works destruction on the body of the cell. 
The cell repairs itself by producing new re- 
ceptors in greater number than it at first 
possessed. A second quantity of toxin re- 
peats the multiplication of receptors, and, 
through this excessive production, the re- 
ceptors are pushed off from the cell and 
float free in the fluids of the body. When 
the same toxin again enters the body, it is 
taken up by these free floating sentinels, 
which are unconnected with the body cells, 
and either float harmlessly in the blood or 
are eliminated by the various excretory 
organs. 

For years Ehrlich and his co-laborers have 
been busy piling up experimental data in 
support of his theory, and it has been largely 
accepted. What position he holds in regard 
to cell intelligence I do not know, but " the 
136 



To Consciousness 

validity of the theory itself is something 
quite apart from the indubitable facts on 
which the theory is based. " x 

No matter what theory is advanced to 
explain the wonders of cell activity, there 
is always a picture of an individual life born 
in the embryological cell, living its own lit- 
tle span in a community of organic life, and 
passing away in course of time. Donaldson, 
in quoting, says : " Minot pointed out that 
in the mature cell the proportion of cyto- 
plasm to nucleus was greater than in the 
growing animal, and, on the ground of this, 
propounds, half humorously, the aphorism 
that Protoplasm is the physical basis of ad- 
vancing decrepitude." 

Man's life in the body depends on the life 
of these cells, and he should be interested 
in them. If there is any truth in the in- 
dividual life of the cell, the " half humor- 
ous " aphorism is plausible, for the proto- 
plasm is the form limiting the activity of 

1 " Paul Ehrlich : The Man and His Work." An 
article by Marguerite Marks in McClure's Maga- 
zine, December, 1910. 

137 



Life's Response 

the life and consciousness. When the form 
becomes too massive, the nucleus is unable 
to draw the pabulum through the walls of 
protoplasm, and therefore is not nourished. 
When the life lacks nourishment it has not 
the energy to respond to outside stimula- 
tion, so consciousness, having nothing to be 
aware of, withdraws. With the withdrawal 
of consciousness, life has no internal stim- 
uli, and it also withdraws, leaving the form 
to disintegrate. 

Scientists have lately discovered that the 
life of an organ and the life of the cells do 
not depend on the life of man. At the 
Rockefeller Institute Dr. Carrel has pre- 
served animal tissue in cold storage three 
weeks. He has discovered that large parts 
of the body are alive and useful after the 
phenomenon known as death has taken place. 
" The kidneys and heart can in most cases 
be resuscitated. This is a well demon- 
strated medical fact. The human heart has 
been removed from the body more than 
thirty hours after death, and made to beat 
again. Dr. Carrel has taken the heart from 

138 



To Consciousness 

one dog and inserted it in the neck of an- 
other, connecting the aorta with the carotid 
artery of the new heart, and the vena cava 
with the jugular vein. In a few moments 
the live dog had two hearts rhythmically 
heating, one recording a pulse of 88°, and 
the other iooV x 

We talk of life and death, but even science 
has no precise definition for either. As it 
searches with glass and scalpel into the mys- 
tery, it but pushes the explanation back and 
back, and does much to corroborate the re- 
vealed teaching that life is everywhere. Life 
is the ever-present reality of all the planes. 
The form that embodies the life is of itself 
life, all is life, everywhere is life, and each 
expression of life is so dependent on the 
whole life that there is perfect unity in the 
diversity of life. 

1 Burton J. Hendrick, in McClure's. 



139 



CHAPTER VII 



NERVE CURRENTS 



If the human body, as a whole, is highly- 
evolved, it is due to the evolution and 
specialization of the cells that make the body, 
and as the nervous system in man is the an- 
swer to his unfolding states of conscious- 
ness, it is the highest in rank and im- 
portance. Bone, muscle, and tissue cells are 
the building material of the body, and, our 
physiologies tell us, have but one dead level 
of function; that is, the intelligence of one 
bone cell is little else than the intelligence 
of another bone cell. The muscles do but 
one thing — contract and relax — and one set 
of muscles is no different in rank from an- 
other, but in the nervous tissue there is 
gradation of rank. The gray matter of the 
motor cells of the spinal cord controls all 
unconscious bodily actions, but states of con- 
140 



Life's Response to Consciousness 

sciousness require a finer mechanism, and 
take their initiative from the more highly 
evolved cells of the cortex. 

Nerves are first observed in plants in tiny 
tracings that can be studied, but, no doubt, 
the nerves make a rudimentary beginning in 
the mineral kingdom, else there would be 
no avenue of response for the electrical stim- 
uli. In the lowest animals the tiny tracing 
of nerves becomes the beginning of the 
nervous system; that is, the nerve thread or 
fiber will receive and transmit a stimulus to 
a nerve center of soft gray cells and fibers, 
and that center reacts to the stimulus. The 
nerves carrying the stimuli to the center are 
called afferent, and the nerves returning the 
stimuli of response are efferent. From this 
simple beginning, the system evolves, first, 
by a multiplication of centers which are con- 
nected by short nerve fibers, and are thus 
able to work together, and then by a further 
development that shows a regular chain of 
such nerve centers, whose function of re- 
ceiving and transmitting vibrations, and then 
reacting on the stimulus, never varies. The 

141 



Life's Response 

end of the nerve attached to the center is 
called central, and the other end is periph- 
eral. 

Through association some of the centers 
co-operate more frequently than others, and 
a pathway is made by which the incoming 
stimulus meets with no resistance. Such 
an afferent impulse, repeated and repeated, 
will produce a bodily response that will ex- 
plain the organic activities such as the heart- 
beat, circulation, digestion, etc. The re- 
sponse to the stimulus that does not now 
need the conscious recognition was not al- 
ways unconsciously reacted to, however. At 
first it was, no doubt, the result of a move- 
ment in answer to a need of life and the first 
pathway was made from the periphery to 
the center and back again, with the need con- 
tinuing; and the pathway ever so poorly 
opened, each succeeding message that called 
for a similar response would take the same 
path as the one offering the least resistance. 

This deductive reasoning is greatly 
strengthened by the fact that it can be 
demonstrated that every action of which we 
142 



To Consciousness 

are unconscious now can again be brought 
up to the plane of consciousness. 

The Hatha Yoga practices of India prove 
this. It is the marvel of physiology and of 
anatomy what these men may do in revers- 
ing the processes of nature. To substan- 
tiate their claims, the Yogi has submitted to 
be buried for a period of months, with all 
the precautions possible taken by the Eng- 
lish sentinels who guard the grave, and at 
the end of the experience the man comes 
forth alive and none the worse. The Yogi 
can eat when he will, digesting the most 
enormous amount of food by a conscious 
control over the digestive fluids and stim- 
ulation of the cells of the stomach. He can 
sleep or not sleep as he wills, and muscles, 
joints, and nerves are his to do with as he 
directs. 1 

These men have been brought to England, 
and have proven their ability to master phys- 
ical conditions under tests of the most con- 
clusive character, and they remain unex- 

1 Abhedananda. 

143 



Life's Response 

plained mysteries to the physiologists and 
anatomists. 

The advisability of Hatha Yoga is more 
than questionable. When we remember the 
long time, and the great labor life has been 
to, to make a body that will respond to its 
own needs without conscious direction, and 
the need for the conscious mind to gather 
new material which may be worked up into 
new experience for the soul's progress, it 
will be seen that a recall of those acts that 
no longer need supervision to the active con- 
sciousness is not progress, but retrogression, 
in part at least. The indomitable will, pa- 
tience, and perseverance necessary to achieve 
this control over the body are a permanent 
asset of the soul, but the physical phenomena 
are lost at death, and the new body of the in- 
carnating ego will require the same strenu- 
ous training if it is to be brought under 
control. 

The nerve centers that act with such pre- 
cision were not created for man in the be- 
ginning. The organization of the nervous 
system has been the work of long ages, and 

144 



To Consciousness 

comes from the necessity of his ever-expand- 
ing intelligence for a means of expression. 

The spinal cord is the original nervous 
system of the vertebrate, and consists of a 
great number of nerve centers, one above 
another on each side, and joined together 
by tracts of fibers. The nerve fibers are 
really extensions of the nerve cell. They 
are very fine hair-like protuberances, that 
are easily disturbed, and that respond to the 
impulse in rhythmical motion that carries 
from the point of contact on through the 
pathway to the cortical cells, where the 
recognition is made by the mental self and 
the motor impulse initiated for the response. 

It was the conscious activity of the self 
in mental matter that necessitated a brain 
and nerve cells of higher intelligence than 
the cells of the spinal cord. These cells are 
highly specialized, and can be taught by the 
conscious mind to respond to stimulation, 
but " no primary law or function in the 
nervous system is ever superseded by any 
later developments; and so, however great 
be the additions afterward of brain centers 

145 



Life's Response 

or functions, yet the spinal nerve centers 
retain all their original prerogatives, quite 
as much in man as in any of the rest of the 
animal world." * 

The nerve element is a source of energy, 
and is called nerve impulse. This impulse 
is of the nature of electricity, and, under 
certain conditions, the currents can be led 
off from the nerve trunks and studied by 
means of the galvanometer. The impulse 
passes over the nerves in the form of a wave 
that differs from electricity principally in the 
slowness with which it moves. Electricity 
travels over a copper wire at the rate of one 
hundred and eighty thousand feet a second, 
while the current over an afferent nerve is 
one hundred and eighty feet per second, and 
over the efferent nerve one hundred and 
sixty feet. To arouse the wave, a sudden 
stimulation must be applied, either an in- 
crease or a decrease of the normal current. 
A steady current or a gradual change does 
not noticeably affect it. The reaction is 

1 Thomson, " Brain and Personality ." 
146 



To Consciousness 

more dependent on the rate of the vibration 
than on the strength; that is, a repeated 
blow, even if a weak one, produces the re- 
action that one isolated strong one cannot 
do. 

This is a very important fact in healing. 
We know that the external stimuli are cease- 
lessly playing upon the nerve energy. Sci- 
ence has proven that a gradual stimulation 
registers only, that it is the sudden stimula- 
tion that brings recognition. The stimula- 
tion which is registered only is dealt with by 
the unconscious mind. When the effects are 
of a nature to be reckoned with, the stim- 
ulation is carried to the brain and demands 
recognition. Any sudden stimulation at 
once calls for a conscious recognition, and 
the reaction is initiated by the thought. 

Thought (the vibration or stimulation of 
mental matter) follows the same law. It is 
a sudden strong resistance that changes the 
waves of nerve energy. No passive endur- 
ance, no querulous fault-finding, but the 
strong resistance followed by the conscious- 
ness of self-mastery and the lower intelli- 

H7 



Life's Response 

gence of the body will obey the dictates of 
the mental self. As the reaction of the 
nerve impulse is more dependent on the rate 
of the vibration than on the strength, so is 
the power of the thought more dependent on 
the rate than the strength, and the finer the 
quality of thought the more rapidly it passes 
over the nerve cells and fibers, exciting or 
inhibiting, as the conscious mind directs. 

In experimenting with the lower forms of 
animal life, Whitman has shown that the 
entire nervous system may be regarded as a 
series of brains. Other scientists, although 
exponents of automaticity, in studying man, 
recognize " the vertebrate as a complex sys- 
tem made up of segments, of many brains. " 

Experiments with a decapitated frog are 
used to illustrate the nerve impulse. As in 
the observation of the cell, the biologists 
agree in the method of the experimentation 
and observation. But, again the explana- 
tion of the phenomena differs according to 
the theory of life the observer accepts. 

A drop of acetic acid placed on the upper 
part of the thigh of a decapitated frog will 
148 



To Consciousness 

cause the segments of the corresponding 
limb to be quickly flexed, so that the foot 
may rub the seat of irritation. If the foot 
of the headless creature be amputated before 
applying the acid, the maimed animal will 
make fresh efforts to reach the spot, and 
will be unable, now that the foot has been 
removed. After some moments of agita- 
tion, as if the brainless creature were seek- 
ing other means, the limb of the other side 
will be bent until that foot is seen rubbing 
the spot. 

Pflugger, an eminent physiologist, experi- 
menting with the frog, claimed for the spinal 
cord a conscious perceptive power similar 
to that ascribed to the brain, and Lewes 
agrees with him and adds " That the rea- 
son why the actions of brainless creatures 
are said to be mechanical is solely because 
the theory declares the brain to be the only 
sensorium." 

The importance of these brain centers lo- 
cated throughout the body can scarcely be 
estimated by one who has not studied psy- 
chology in its relation to physiology. If 
149 



Life's Response 

the strength, the activity, the vitality, and 
the volition of the physical body depend 
on chemical reaction, as some teach, and 
chemical reaction on food that generates 
heat, then control of the body is rooted in 
food and such drugs as act as pabulum; but 
if, on the contrary, the various organs are 
stimulated and inhibited by nerve currents 
that are highly specialized, and that send 
intelligent impulses to bodily centers that 
collect, rearrange, and return the impulse 
independent of the brain, and yet are con- 
trolled by the intelligence of the brain when 
attention is called by some crisis, then we 
have a scientific reason for the mental con- 
trol of the bodily functions. It is the very 
practical application of the Aryan teaching, 
which was made the base of this study, that 
life and consciousness are inseparate from 
form and the universal law; that a higher 
intelligence has a responsibility over, and 
should be the guardian of, an intelligence 
less evolved. 

There are three nervous systems in man. 
The cerebro-spinal, consisting of the brain 

150 



To Consciousness 

and spinal cord, and the nerves branching 
from them; the sympathetic, which comprise 
the larger ganglionic centers that are united 
directly to each other by nerve trunks, and 
which gives off nerves to the various or- 
gans; and the sporadic ganglia, a system 
including the remaining ganglia, some of 
which are connected to the various cerebral 
trunks, while the rest are connected with 
the peripheral branches of sympathetic or 
other nerves. 

The human body is wired by these three 
systems. Each of the small scattered cen- 
ters is called a ganglion, and from this 
twisted center the trunk emerges which 
spreads over the body, branching into a 
smaller and smaller network of nerves, until 
they terminate in the sense organs, muscular 
fibers, or are lost to the investigator. The 
nerve extensions are of fibrous outgrowth, 
which twist much as do the nerve centers. 
These twisted fibers are known as plexuses. 
Both ganglia and plexuses have the gray or 
white matter of the brain which the uncon- 
scious mind uses, as the conscious mind uses 

151 



Life's Response 

the cortical cells of the brain. It was from 
these lower localized brain centers that the 
animal intelligently reacted to stimuli, and 
it is from these same lower brains that the 
unconscious activity of man's body is con- 
trolled by the unconscious mind. It is be- 
cause of the indelible register on the atoms 
that build the neural cells that the instincts 
of the animal kingdom are an heritage to 
man. 

The body is completely wired by these 
three nervous systems, with the numerous 
ganglia and plexuses. The blood vessels 
of the body are covered by a network of 
nerves from the sympathetic system, and 
the other organs are acted upon by nerves 
which modify or excite each function. They 
connect or co-ordinate the actions of differ- 
ent parts, and cause them to work in har- 
mony, so that stimulating one organ will 
excite the activity of another. The cells are 
really living matter, extending from the 
periphery of the body to a center at some 
distance within the body, and the ganglia 
are united with the sympathetic and with 



To Consciousness 

the cerebro-spinal system. As the cerebro- 
spinal system is elaborated into the brain 
through which the mental self can com- 
municate with the physical, and as the brain 
is in touch with the sympathetic and sporadic 
ganglia through the cerebro-spinal system, 
the line of communication is open from the 
conscious mind to every intelligent center of 
the body. 

The protection of the cerebro-spinal sys- 
tem is wonderful. As units, the nerves are 
very delicate; both brain and spinal cord are 
soft and easily crushed, but each is pro- 
tected by a bony cavity that is nearly closed, 
and is enveloped by tough membranes. 
There are three of these membranes; the 
inner and outer are fibrous; the one lying 
between is covered with closely fitting cells. 
Treated with a re-agent, a fresh white nerve 
fiber shows three layers. " Outside is a fine 
transparent envelope, inside this is a fatty 
substance, and in the center is a core which 
is longitudinally fibrillated." The nerve 
fibers spread in all directions from a large 
center cell. Within the ganglion, and be- 

153 



Life's Response 

tween the fibers, are groups of nerve cells, 
and probably each fiber, as it passes through 
the ganglion, connects with a cell. 

Keep in mind that it is the nucleus that 
responds to the stimulus, and that the fiber 
is the conducting medium. Nothing can 
reach the brain that does not pass over the 
nerves. They act as guardians protecting it 
from external disturbances, for no vibra- 
tion can enter that is too slow or too fast 
to awaken the nerve impulse. Much of the 
transmitting power depends on the tempera- 
ture of the middle envelope. This sheath, 
as well as the nerve itself, consists of " phos- 
phorized fats in a weak state of solution of 
salts " ; and heat, whether from a high state 
of temperature, inflammation, or the emo- 
tions, will soften and even melt the fatty 
substance and scatter it through the water 
that is largely a part of the nerve sub- 
stance, while cold congeals the fat, and the 
nerve hardens. Any condition, external or 
internal, that alters the substance of this 
sheath has placed the man at a disadvantage 
to his environment. 

154 



To Consciousness 

In a way we all recognize that, before we 
help ourselves or another, we must be calm, 
and instinct has helped us much in restoring 
the nerves to a normal temperature, but 
when knowledge can come to the aid of in- 
stinct, and send such thought waves over 
the nerves as will excite or inhibit the nerve 
impulse, then there can be a conscious con- 
trol of the body. 

When the nerves are normal and carry the 
stimuli from periphery to center and back, 
there is a line of communication from body 
to mind and return. Man is not conscious 
of sensation through any primal action of 
his own mind, neither is he conscious 
through external stimulation, but sensation 
is vibration impelled over the nerves by the 
intelligence of lower brain centers, and re- 
ceived by the cortical cells, and recognized 
by the mental self. The impulse is received 
by the nucleus and transmitted over the 
fibers, consequently, if a part is injured, and 
the fibers are cut between the wound and 
the spinal cord, the man is oblivious to pain. 
If the cells were simply in an atmosphere 

155 



Life's Response 

of intelligence, and responded automatically 
to the environment, the physical conscious- 
ness would not depend on the individual in- 
telligence of each cell, and a cut fiber would 
be insufficient to stop a message of such im- 
portance. But the injured part is cut off 
from even a muscular contraction, unless 
the impulse can reach some sporadic, sym- 
pathetic, or cerebro-spinal cell, which will 
act as a relay center. 

Relay and junction centers are so called 
" since in them probably an impulse enter- 
ing by one nerve fiber excites a cell which, 
by its communicating branches, arouses 
many others, and these send out impulses by 
the many nerve fibers connected with them. 
By such means a single nerve fiber can act 
upon an extended region of the body." 1 
Thus a cell through its fibers may call on a 
number of cells for help, and the combined 
vibrations will reach the brain as an emer- 
gency call. 

There are many important nerve centers 

1 Martin. 

156 



To Consciousness 

in the body ; the spinal cord is a reflex center 
in addition to being a transmitter. Martin 
says that " reflex centers do not act, as a 
rule, indifferently and casually, but re- 
arrange the impulses reaching them, so as 
to produce a protective or, in some way, ad- 
vantageous result. In other words, these 
centers, acting in health, commonly co- 
ordinate the incoming impulses and give rise 
to outward-going impulses, which produce 
an apparently purposive result." And he 
illustrates these " apparently purposive re- 
sults " by highly intelligent acts that are 
brought about entirely by the unconscious 
mind through the concomitant cell matter of 
the lower brain. 

The solar plexus is often called the brain 
of the unconscious mind. It belongs to 
the sympathetic system, the ganglia of which 
lie in two rows, one on each side of the 
vertebra. Each ganglion is united by com- 
municating branches with the spinal nerves, 
and, near the skull, with the cranial nerves. 
From the ganglia and their connections 
start numerous trunks which, in the thoracic 

157 



Life's Response 

and abdominal cavities, form plexuses. 
These plexuses possess ganglia of their own. 
One of the most important is the solar 
plexus, which lies back of the stomach and 
supplies nerves to the stomach, liver, kid- 
neys, and intestines. 

Through certain harmful practices this 
center can be aroused, and clairvoyance and 
clairaudience be developed. It is little 
trouble to so awaken the centers of the un- 
conscious mind that its intelligence, with 
its storehouse of memories, will surge up 
and impose itself on the man as the dom- 
inant intelligence which is to control the 
life, and, unfortunately, much curiosity has 
been aroused in this direction. Any study 
or practice that unduly excites the lower 
brain centers is most dangerous, and it is 
almost impossible to again force them 
back into the proper relation with the 
brain. 

When the solar plexus is not over-stim- 
ulated, it gathers the incoming and outgoing 
vibrations through its connecting fibers in a 
normal manner, and relates itself to the un- 

158 



To Consciousness 

conscious mind, as does the brain to the con- 
scious mind. 

This living body of man's, wired by 
nerves to every organ, and with a brain of 
its own, which co-ordinates vibration from 
without and sensation from within, is sub- 
ject to his thought. The cells are held to- 
gether by the necessity of organic life; they 
function according to the law of their own 
evolution, but, nevertheless, they are under 
the influence of the human mind. The cells 
and organs keep their minor troubles to 
themselves. Many a battle is won and lost 
that does not reach the conscious mind, but 
in times of stress the nerves rush the mes- 
sage to the brain and ask the higher intel- 
ligence of the conscious mind for help, just 
as man in his extremity appeals to the Uni- 
versal Intelligence for the knowledge and 
strength that he knows is his, if he will only 
unfold the petals of his own inner nature 
and realize his right to appropriate from the 
Divine supply such resources as he is in 
need of. 

159 



CHAPTER VIII . 

SUGGESTION ; SUGGESTIBILITY 

Suggestion and suggestibility have their 
roots in the very depths of life. It is as 
though the Creator, expressing a creation 
that is diverse in its multiple expression, still 
gently guided the many on the long paths 
that in seons of time would focus at the 
same great goal. Always is the armor of 
man pierced by the instinct to compete, by 
desires which have arisen by contact with 
others, and by the whispers of his own self. 
Normal suggestibility is such a necessary 
factor of life that it is accepted as any other 
function. When it is deficient, man is hope- 
lessly indifferent to any form of achieve- 
ment. If totally lacking, he would be lower 
even than the vegetable, for away back in 
that kingdom is seen the borrowing of 
shades and colors from neighboring plants, 

1 60 



Life's Response to Consciousness 

induced, no doubt, by this same universal 
principle — to bring the diversified parts back 
into a perfect whole. 

The powers of nature are irresistible. 
They move on regardless of the individual, 
and the prayers that seek to set aside the 
law have no wings for flight. The right- 
eous man whom the Lord delights in is he 
who recognizes law, and who seeks, through 
knowledge, to put himself into working re- 
lation with it. Recognizing the law of sug- 
gestion, and that each and every one is nor- 
mally suggestible, man can co-operate with 
this universal power, and put himself in 
touch with ideals that he has created through 
the stimulation of thought that has been 
spurred on by the achievement of another. 

All organizations are possible because of 
this phase of life, and so long as the balance 
can be maintained between the leaders and 
the led, the cause prospers. Those who 
compose the mass must agree, at least out- 
wardly, with the plans and methods outlined 
by those in authority, and they must work 
as they are told. When they feel the stir- 
i6x 



Life's Response 

rings of too much originality, they weaken 
the movement, and they must either get out, 
or else become leaders in turn. The source 
of suggestion has changed; it is the voice 
within that is now speaking, and, if listened 
to and obeyed, they are no longer of the 
mass; what they will be depends on the sug- 
gestions they listen to. Few will be strong 
enough to withdraw and live in retirement, 
for there is a shrinking from standing alone 
that is man's heritage from the group soul. 
As the animals and birds move in bands and 
flocks, and a stimulus is common to all, so is 
man still bound by the old instinct to " fol- 
low the leader." In every society there are 
the dissatisfied who remain. Newly awak- 
ened to their own powers, and afraid to test 
opinions that have not the sanction of the 
more experienced, they are a source of fric- 
tion that functionally disables the whole. 
What should be done in such cases is too 
much an individual matter to be arbitrarily 
settled. 

The man who refuses to be dominated 
should do so from principle, and not from 
162 



To Consciousness 

a feeling of superiority; he must be will- 
ing to take the responsibility of his own 
acts, and to learn the lessons of his own 
experience, and, if he sees wrong in dom- 
inating, he should be equally firm not to 
dominate in turn. If he is fitted to help 
others he will, by the law of attraction, come 
to know them, and his suggestions will 
strengthen their own thought power, so that 
they, too, may be able to weigh the good and 
bad suggestions that desire makes so at- 
tractive, and to control the actions and the 
emotions by thought that has been educated 
in the real sense that it is a personal activity 
which has received the sanction of the in- 
tellect. 

Suggestion and suggestibility have the two 
aspects of good and bad, as have everything 
else in the world. They belong to us, and 
are not of our seeking, so we cannot ignore 
them as illusions. The better way is to 
recognize their value and to make them 
servants to our progress. Discrimination 
will help us to be on guard against the sug- 
gestions that are dominant or hypnotic, and 
163 



Life's Response 

to select what we desire to color the thought, 
and thus we may learn to close the mind or 
to co-operate in the intrusion. 

The importance of this study has been 
recognized by our colleges, and laboratories 
have been set aside for daily experiments. 
Professor Sidis states he has " made more 
than eight thousand experiments on per- 
fectly healthy and normal individuals, who 
had never been hypnotized/' to learn the ef- 
fects of normal suggestion and its motor 
response. These experiments were made 
under the best possible conditions, and in 
the presence of co-laborers and conservative 
scientists. At one and the same time, he 
discovered, through these experiments, the 
most effective form of suggestion, and the 
best method of co-operation by the sub- 
ject 

Ideas were presented through repetition, 
frequency, co-existence, and last impression, 
and then the different methods were com- 
bined, and from a tabulated statement there 
was a result of one hundred and thirteen 
successful responses out of one hundred and 
164 



To Consciousness 

fifty experiments in the combination of fre- 
quency and last impression. 

The co-operation of the subject consisted 
in fixing his attention on the matter pre- 
sented, and in distracting his attention from 
all else; in placing himself in a familiar en- 
vironment and in the limitation of voluntary 
movements. This mental and physical at- 
titude was one of expectancy, and the mind 
was ready to grasp the first idea that came. 

In answer to a signal, the subject was to 
write immediately whatever came into his 
mind. As the presentations were made on 
a screen in the form of symbols, and the 
subject not dominated by the experimental- 
ist, he naturally wrote what impressed him 
most. 1 These experiments were for data on 
the normal suggestion and suggestibilty, and 
must not be confused with other experi- 
ments of Dr. Sidis, in which he hypnotizes 
his subject and delves into the deep recesses 
of the unconscious mind. 

In the broad sense, suggestion is every- 

1 Boris Sidis, " Psychology of Suggestion." 

165 



Life's Response 

where. It is the universal teacher of life. 
As the body evolves, the nerves become more 
and more sensitive to vibrations, the special 
senses of taste, smell, touch, hearing, sight, 
and temperature become the gateway of 
knowledge through which vibrations enter 
the body and are carried to the brain to be 
interpreted in terms of thought. Each vi- 
bration recognized by the conscious mind is 
a suggestion for the self to experiment with, 
so the suggestion becomes mental material, 
which is accepted on approval. Its accept- 
ance implies a change of thought, and 
thought, with its motor response, is experi- 
ence, which in time determines the value of 
the suggestion. 

Suggestion and suggestibility that are ab- 
normal come under the head of hypnosis, 
and have no place in this study, but such a 
change of thought as is desired by the sub- 
ject and can be effected by the operator with- 
out in any way lessening his mental control, 
becomes advice which is voluntarily accepted 
and acted upon. 

Drummond tells us, u Laws are only 
166 



To Consciousness 

modes of operation." Nature is an econ- 
omist. The mode that is good for the de- 
velopment of human life is good for lower 
forms of life. An understanding of the 
continuity of law is making it possible for 
scientists to study very closely into the mys- 
tery of unseen life. " Harmony established 
by science is not a harmony within specific 
departments. It is the universe that is the 
harmony ;" and the harmony of any part 
depends on the harmony of the whole. Man 
can never be at his best if any part of him 
is in discord, for the mind immediately fas- 
tens itself on the trouble and cannot attend 
to other things. 

As most men associate themselves with 
the body, they most quickly respond to its 
condition; a call of distress brings forth the 
most strenuous efforts for health. There 
are so many schools of healing that one has 
to keep in mind that therapeutics are but 
man's endeavor to understand nature's law, 
and to co-operate with her in establishing 
harmony. Inasmuch as all these methods 
succeed and fail at times, they must succeed 
167 



Life's Response 

because, in the last analysis, they work ac- 
cording to the universal principle, and they 
fail when they depart from this principle. 

What is health? It is the harmonious 
activity of the cells of the body. What is 
disease ? It is the inharmonious activity of 
the cells of the body. What is the law of 
healing? It is restoring the cells to a har- 
monious activity. AND THERE IS BUT 
ONE LAW. 

Health is the grasp the individual has on 
life and an individual is an unit, whether it 
be an atom, a cell, or a man. Life was 
defined in the basic statement as the ability 
of the organism to respond to external stim- 
uli. This definition, as before said, recog- 
nizes both organism and environment, as 
does Spencer's famous definition : " Were 
there no changes in the environment, but 
such as the organism had adapted changes 
to meet, and were it never to fail in the ef- 
ficiency with which it met them, there would 
be eternal existence and eternal knowledge." 

If this correspondence is eternal in its re- 
lation to existence and to knowledge, then 
168 



To Consciousness 

the effort of Nature is one of adaptability, 
and man's co-operation would consist in 
recognizing both organism and environment, 
and assisting in such modifications as are in 
his power. 

Man lives on many planes, and the Law of 
Continuity teaches that the method of 
adaptation on any plane is the method on all. 
On the mental plane man is an organism in 
a mental environment. If he wants a full 
life he must associate with literary people, 
and surround himself with books. This is 
his environment, and he must have ideas 
and good concomitant brain cells for his or- 
ganism. He must listen to the opinions ex- 
pressed in his environment, and be capable 
of passing judgment on them, and of accept- 
ing those only which are true to him and to 
the " body of truth," which he has created 
through his own literary discrimination. Al- 
ways he is open to new ideas, and if they 
are acceptable, he thinks on them, and thus 
attracts kindred thoughts. As new ideas 
are gained, the older ones are necessarily in- 
truded into the unconscious mind, and mod- 
169 



Life's Response 

ify the mental organism. His health is his 
grasp of life in this realm, and his progress 
depends on the intelligence with which he 
adapts organism to environment. 

On the plane of sensation, emotions and 
desires make a nervous organism that must 
relate itself to the hard facts of mental and 
physical life. The perfect correspondence 
will be when desire is transmuted into will, 
and the emotions are controlled by the edu- 
cated thought. On this plane there must be 
great care that the environment does not de- 
mand an organism too finely wired to stand 
the impact of the vibrations. And, again, 
an organism that is too finely tuned, in a low, 
coarse environment, will become a menace to 
either the morals or the health. 

The argument will follow the same lines 
on the physical plane. Always for a com- 
plete correspondence, the demand and the 
supply must balance, for this is the law of 
nature in everything, and any interference 
in the supply or the demand is an interfer- 
ence in the environment or the organism. 

Until the last few generations most of the 
170 



To Consciousness 

effort for harmony was expended in alter- 
ing the environment, and, failing in this, pa- 
tience was cultivated to endure what was 
considered inevitable. Then came the re- 
actionary teaching, that all life's phenom- 
ena were unreal. Spirit and matter be- 
came separate, with no basis for a mate- 
rial universe, and consequently the effort 
was all directed toward changing the or- 
ganism. 

It is true in the large sense that man is 
an impersonal being in the Divine environ- 
ment, but to know this he must have the ex- 
perience of creating and controlling condi- 
tions, and of adapting himself to them. Dur- 
ing the human evolution he is limited to his 
own knowledge of Absolute truth and, as 
man, with most of life's secrets locked in 
his consciousness, he must raise himself, not 
by denying matter, but by depending on the 
ensouling principle in matter (which is 
spirit) to carry him onward. Universal 
Power and Substance are the supply that is 
the environment of life. What is called 
phenomena is not illusion, but the symbol 
171 



Life's Response 

that meets our demands, and is not to be 
cast out of the equation until the human 
evolution is completed. 

Man and nature have not yet made a suc- 
cess of co-operation. The life expressed on 
any of the planes is only a fragment, be- 
cause the correspondence is so incomplete, 
and, in place of eternal life and knowledge, 
there is but the briefest of sojourn, and al- 
most no realization. By the Universal law 
man cannot escape life. He is born, and he 
dies, both to his organism and to his environ- 
ment, but he must return again and again in 
a new body and in a new place. Eternal 
knowledge demands that he gain dominion 
over all things, and, as man, he must know 
how to care for his own life before he can 
be trusted with the more responsible duties 
of a superhuman existence. 

A conglomerate of ideas, born of different 
activities, is persistently demanding admit- 
tance to the brain, and discrimination is lost 
in deciding their value. When the ideas 
Once get in and are entertained, they are 
crowded on by the stream of newcomers, 
172 



To Consciousness 

and become the property of the unconscious 
mind, and help to form the environment of 
the subconscious region, where the living 
cells of the body are making their demand 
and living their infinitesimal lives under the 
same law of growth, of activity, and of de- 
velopment that reigns elsewhere in the uni- 
verse. These tiny lives need food (pabu- 
lum), air, water, and heat, and so long as 
man lives in the physical body, he will sup- 
ply this demand, for it caters to his own 
satisfaction. The balance of the environ- 
ment is the unconscious mind. How much 
man's preservation in the flesh depends on 
the wisdom with w T hich he selects and in- 
trudes from other planes healthy thoughts 
and true ideas into these dark corners of his 
earthly home, he is only just beginning to 
suspect. He is learning that physical in- 
dulgences weaken the nerves, that the emo- 
tions have an effect on the secretions, and 
that thought stimulates and inhibits. But 
how many, many experiences it takes to even 
believe there are no exceptions to the law, 
and how many more to KNOW it is worth 

173 



Life's Response 

while to be ever on guard over all these ave- 
nues of life. The lesson is one of strategy. 
The man must know where to place his 
guard. It will not do to allow the enemy 
into the avenues, for then the battle is lost. 
Guard the thought, for physical indulgences 
are but actions which are fruit of thought, 
and desires and emotions depend on thought 
for recognition and result, so man can cope 
with the real of himself much better than 
he does. He can help to pass down those 
thoughts that will be the salvation of his 
physical body, and to overcome and abort 
those whose influence is harmful. 

The evolution of the cell is toward a dif- 
ferent goal than the evolution of man, but it 
is a life expressing itself in the same uni- 
verse, and it is, therefore, under the same 
laws, and its method of progress is similar. 
In the study of the cells it was shown how 
very individual they are: how they co- 
operate and compete, ; how active they are at 
times, and again inactive; how sympathetic 
in all disturbances; in fact, how the con- 
sciousness in the cell unfolds into the cell 

174 



To Consciousness 

organism that expresses it, so in cell-life 
there are the same phenomena as in man-life 
— a changeable organism and a changeable 
environment — and consequently there is the 
same necessity for a perfect correspondence 
as in the human life. 

Health has been twice defined in this 
study. As the grasp the individual has 
on life, the definition is a broad one for 
the self-conscious man. Defined as the har- 
monious activities of the cells of the body, it 
is the limited one for the health of the body 
that man uses during his earth life, and it 
will be readily seen from what followed the 
definition, that harmony depends on the re- 
lation of the cells to each other, and to the 
unconscious mind which is their mental en- 
vironment. 

Much has been said of the perfect corre- 
spondence and the eternal life in the last 
few pages, and yet a continuous eternal life 
in the flesh is unthinkable. We have 
specialized a physical self, to live in the en- 
vironment of a physical universe, and that 
universe is not eternal. The heavens and 

175 



Life's Response 

the earth, as we see them in the symbols 
of the planetary system, will pass away when 
man has no further need for them. 1 The 
man who has claimed the promise of spirit 
and has obtained " dominion over all 
things " 2 has finished his human evolution; 
he now becomes a " pillar in the temple of 
God, and he shall go no more out " 3 for 
physical birth and death. 

The purpose of life is not to perfect man, 
but to know God. To believe in God is not 
sufficient, but the ultimate purpose is "to be 
like Him." In the human evolution we are 
the " sons of God." There are other planes 
of life finer even than the higher mental 
plane, above and beyond all imagination. 
On these planes there is neither space, time, 
nor causation. The ego has not finished his 
experience until he has lived on these planes 
and learned to conquer their rate of vibra- 
tion. His life and his knowledge must cor- 
respond to the Universal environment when 

1 2 Peter 3 : 10. 

2 Genesis 1 :26. 

8 Revelation 3:12. 

176 



To Consciousness 

he has completed his pilgrimage back to the 
Source of life and knowledge. 

The cell life follows the same law. Its 
environment is one of both physical supply 
and of human intelligence; it can ignore 
neither. If its supply is meager the cells 
will starve; if it is environed with a low 
grade of human intelligence, the vibrations 
will not be of a nature to stimulate a high 
quality of response, and in either case the 
life will depend on the ability of the cell to 
adapt itself to the mental and ethical nature 
of the man whose body is the universe the 
cell lives in. 

This unconscious mind that is the en- 
vironment of the cell is the conscious activ- 
ity that has become fixed through habit. It 
was once the active discrimination of 
thought that the man was satisfied with, and 
that he built into his own subwaking self, 
and it is this self, with its mind, that is sug- 
gestible. 

Professor Sidis has given a description of 
this subwaking self that is very graphic, 
and, if we think on what he says, we will see 
177 



Life's Response 

the necessity of controlling the life from 
the plane of the highest intelligence. He 
says : " The subwaking self lacks all in- 
dividuality, it is absolutely servile, it has no 
law at all, it has no will, it is blown hither 
and thither by all sorts of incoming sug- 
gestions. " Suggestion is the impulse that 
controls this self, and suggestion is the law 
of its activity. With all the experiences of 
life a memory for this self, and with the 
delicate atoms tuned to repeat the old-time 
response to past stimuli, it is ever ready to 
receive and to respond to such impressions 
as reach it through any and every channel. 
If this is true, and Dr. Sidis' thousands of 
experiments prove that it is so, then each 
of us should intelligently study the law of 
suggestion, and know its good and bad 
aspect, so as to protect and help ourselves as 
individuals, and also to provide the best 
kind of an unconscious environment for the 
cells that are necessary for our bodily ex- 
istence. 

The definition of suggestion, by the same 
author, will explain how a change of thought 
178 



To Consciousness 

is effected. He writes : " By suggestion is 
meant the intrusion into the mind of an idea, 
met with more or less opposition by the per- 
son, accepted uncritically at last, and realized 
unreflectingly and almost automatically.'' 
The intrusion, to be hypnotic, must reverse 
the relation of the conscious and uncon- 
scious mind. It must arouse ideas in the 
unconscious that have not been passed upon 
critically by the every-day present conscious- 
ness, and it imposes desires, emotions, and 
acts on the servile self that has no will, no 
conscience, no morals, and no power of in- 
ductive reasoning. In the common use of 
the word, then, hypnosis is only associated 
with abnormal suggestion. 

Every dominant idea in life has the ear- 
mark of intrusion behind its motor result. 
When once a line of thought, or study, or a 
fad of any nature appeals to the self as de- 
sirable, the process of making it an ac- 
quisition is the same. The idea must take 
possession of the man; it must so fill his 
mind that, in spite of the old consciousness, 
it intrudes and becomes the obsessing idea. 
179 



Life's Response 

When it has achieved this distinction it will 
work out its own destiny. 

The man who selects such ideals as he 
wishes to outpicture, and who puts himself 
into such an environment as will keep them 
ever before his mind, sooner or later sym- 
bolizes them in matter. The genius is he 
who can select from the mass of suggestions 
in which he is deluged such ideas as he 
wishes, and, knowing what he wants, can 
help to intrude those ideas and to keep out 
others that would interfere. This form of 
intrusion is healthy exercise for the con- 
scious mind. The advice and help of an- 
other in selecting and passing down the de- 
sired thought vibrations is in the form of 
co-operation, and is a stimulation without 
in any way becoming an abnormal domina- 
tion. If the idea intruded is one that will 
benefit, in the real sense, then is the ego the 
better for the discipline. If the benefits are 
limited to a sensual gratification, and the 
later results are deplorable, even then the 
man has a permanent acquisition, in that 
he has exercised his mind, and it has re- 
180 



To Consciousness 

sponded with strength and precision to the 
demand made upon it. When he has as- 
similated the experiences, his desires will be 
changed, and the faculties he improved in 
getting his education will serve him in his 
higher effort for self-mastery. 



181 



CHAPTER IX 



SUGGESTION APPLIED 



One of the greatest, if not the greatest, 
limitations of humanity is identifying the 
self with the body. The body is only one of 
the many things the ego possesses. It is not 
even so intimate as the mind or the sensa- 
tions. We might as well identify ourselves 
with the home or the clothes. Each of these 
is so much a part of us that the body, un- 
clothed and with no home, is an organism 
outside an environment that makes con- 
tinued physical existence an impossibility. 
Each of these is related to us, and each is 
necessary to our presence among others of 
our kind. Body, home, and clothes express 
the personality and should be cared for with 
the best judgment we have. All suggestions 
that appeal to us in regard to improvement 
are promptly accepted and followed, and 
182 



Life's Response to Consciousness 

any criticism as to a lack of taste or to a 
non-conformity with the customs of our 
accepted civilization is a source of mor- 
tification and pain. 

When we entered into incarnation the 
body was ready for us. Without it we 
could not have remained, and so long as we 
continue here, it will be our indispensable 
attendant, our only connection with the 
physical world, but it is not man, and man 
is not the body. Each has a life apart from 
the other, and each is an expression of the 
Universal life that is necessary to the other. 
They unite for a time and separate when 
they no longer need each other, but the 
union is so intimate and so vital, and the 
responsibility of the one to the other is so 
great, that advancement for either depends 
largely on the degree with which they work 
together. 

The law of the World process is Reciproc- 
ity — to repay to others what we have re- 
ceived from others. This union of man and 
body is no exception to the rule. Here, as 
elsewhere, is a debit and credit account, and 

183 



Life's Response 

the balance is an endless chain of cause and 
effect that is generally spoken of as action 
and reaction. 

Physical life means, to man, self -con- 
sciousness on the physical plane. Every 
avenue of knowledge focuses in the brain 
cells. Here, in the highly intelligent nerve 
centers, meet the vibrations caused by the 
activities of the self on the finer planes, and 
here are gathered the vibrations that are 
purely physical, the impulses resulting from 
the response of lower nerve centers. As 
these various vibrations seek to enter the 
consciousness the self asserts itself, and in 
some degree at least recognizes its superi- 
ority over the mind, the desires, the emo- 
tions and the body; for the self recognizes, 
discriminates, and entertains or dismisses, 
as the judgment dictates. If the impulse is 
not recognized, that is practically the end 
of the vibration, but if it is entertained then 
a long history follows. 

The ideas resulting from the vibrations 
are a matter of consciousness, a nucleus 
around which all incoming sensations as- 
184 



To Consciousness 

semble. This nucleus is ceaselessly active, 
and disaggregates only when too active for 
the upper consciousness, still in its disag- 
gregation enough is retained to attract sim- 
ilar ideas, and the man grows along these 
lines principally. As the mass disag- 
gregates it becomes a part of the uncon- 
scious mind, and here performs two offices : 
first, it adds to the environment of the cell 
life, and, second, because of its motion (vi- 
bration) it acts as a stimulus to the cells 
themselves, and the cells, having a degree 
of life and consciousness, respond. 

The vibrations resulting from the ideas 
entertained perform a twofold office as 
well : first, they make a channel through the 
nervous matter of the body that becomes a 
highway for similar vibrations, and, second, 
they make an imprint on the atoms of the 
cell that is never lost. 

This relation of the self to the body, the 
sensations, and the mind, and the relation of 
the mind, the sensations, and the body to the 
self, are no more automatic than the relation 
of mother and child; in fact, they are much 

185 



Life's Response 

the same. The mother's love and superior 
understanding make many things possible 
for the child, and the child, environed by the 
intelligent control of the parent, still asserts 
its own lesser intelligence and forms habits 
that must be taken into account if the har- 
mony of the home is to be maintained. 

As the response of the cells to stimuli ef- 
fects a change in the cells themselves, and 
as the organs are only a summation of cells, 
a change in the units will produce a change 
in the organs. A change of any import, 
either good or bad, will be recognized as 
sensation, and the mind will be directed to 
it by the self with varying results. 

The cells respond to a toxic (poisonous) 
stimulus by the nucleus withdrawing and 
contracting the protoplasmic network which 
alters the form of the cell. This shrinking 
interrupts the full healthy action of the 
working units, and the organ becomes in- 
active. An inactive organ affects other 
organs, the nerves, and circulation, and the 
report is sent to the brain for the informa- 
tion of the self. The brain is a part of the 
186 



To Consciousness 

body, and it, too, feels the inhibition, so its 
report must be carefully examined before 
it is accepted. This condition of the body 
is only a functional trouble that in its first 
stages is not serious, and that can be easily 
handled. If no attention is paid to the re- 
port, the battle may be fought and won by 
the resources of the individual intelligence 
of the units of the body, or, if the toxic 
stimulus continues, the disease may pass 
from a functional disturbance of little im- 
port to one of great seriousness, or even 
from a functional to an organic trouble that 
involves the whole body. 

Action and reaction of body and mind 
are almost instantaneous. Vibrations go- 
ing and coming from either are recognized 
as sensations. If sensations are the re- 
sponse to stimuli, then Hegel of Germany 
is right in saying that " everything is 
in sensation." Bagavan Das writes 
that this conclusion has been established 
over and over again by the deepest and most 
independent thought, and he explains that 
"Sensation is not the mere vibration in 

i8 7 



Life's Response 

physical cells answering to stimuli from 
without; in its pure psychological sig- 
nificance; it is . the answer of con- 
sciousness to an internal impact. This is 
obviously primary, for the self must sense 
ere it can think or act." * 

This sensing of bodily conditions arouses 
the mind to an active investigation of the 
causes of the sensation, and conclusions are 
arrived at which rapidly are intruded into 
the lower consciousness, and become sug- 
gestions to the subwaking self. This is the 
reaction of mind to body. 

When the sensations start in the con- 
sciousness by the arousal of wrong thoughts 
or of harmful emotions, in its purely physi- 
ological significance it is the answer of the 
cells to an external impact, and is the re- 
action of body to mind. 

Reaction in either case involves the 
nervous system, and, if of a harmful na- 
ture, disease is first simulated, and, if not 
controlled, becomes an actuality. 

1 Bagavan Das, " Science of the Emotions." 
Quoted with omissions. 

188 



To Consciousness 

If suggestion were confined to correcting 
only such disorders as have their roots in the 
consciousness, it would have a very im- 
portant place in therapeutics. These ob- 
scure troubles are not amenable to medi- 
cine, and treating by electricity, massage, 
etc., is applying the remedy to the effect, 
and not to the cause. If the nerves are 
made stronger by these methods to resist, 
they are also stronger to carry, and if the 
harmful stimuli continue to impact them, 
they will continue to respond with even 
greater resistance. 

But suggestion can do more than mental 
healing. It cannot do everything at the 
present time; perhaps it will find in the 
future, when much more is known of the 
relation of the mind to the body, that it 
works within definite limitations, and then 
it will perfect itself in its sphere, and leave 
to other schools of therapeutics that which 
is outside. Perhaps, even better, the physi- 
cian and the metaphysician may unite, and 
together do what would be impossible for 
either alone. But even with the present 
189 



Life's Response 

knowledge the trained practitioner is 
demonstrating the power of suggestion as 
effective in cases where the source is outside 
the mind. 

In functional diseases where the cause is 
bacteria, wounds, or poisons of various 
kinds, Nature has provided a remedy. There 
are white corpuscles which belong to the 
warrior caste, which fight to the limit, sacri- 
ficing themselves by the million in an effort 
to protect and to save the body; there are 
red corpuscles, which carry supplies to the 
cells; and there are nerve cells which not 
only send information back and forth, but 
which have a most intelligent control over 
the heart and circulation ; and there are anti- 
toxins given forth by different glands. If 
a good diagnosis is made, and the emotions 
are held in check, intelligent suggestion can 
be made that will be a stimulus of encour- 
agement and of help to the cells, and that 
will bring the best response from the atoms 
that compose the cells, for, remember, the 
atoms retain the " trace, impression, 
residua," as Youmans tells us, of all the ex- 
190 



To Consciousness 

periences they have been through. A 
strong vibration that demands the old-time 
consciousness of life will awake a response 
that certainly will change the organic con- 
dition and promise new life to the body. 

Pain and pleasure are sensational emo- 
tions that depend on the mind or the body 
for initiation, and thought has all power over 
the sensations in that it affects both the or- 
ganism and the environment of life, whether 
it be human or cell life. It is the only 
agent which can, in its purity, influence con- 
ditions responsible for the phenomena of 
any manifestation. Medicine is the product 
of intelligent thought, and it depends, as 
well as suggestion, on an intelligent response 
for its results. The medicine put in the 
stomach must become pabulum, and, as it 
is carried by the blood for distribution, the 
nucleus must watch, and select such particles 
for its own sustenance as it requires, and 
reject that which is unsuitable. (See page 
112.) If the body lacks certain essentials 
through wrong eating, the more intelligent 
act would be to make good the deficiency, 
191 



Life's Response 

with food if possible, with medicine if neces- 
sary; but in most cases the storage tissue 
has a reserve for just such an emergency, 
and it is not a lack in the environment, but 
inaction in the organism, that has caused 
the starvation. The well selected and di- 
rected thought vibration will do more to 
stimulate the nucleus, without producing a 
consequent reaction, than medicine, which 
is a symbol of that same thought. 

So far only functional disease has been 
touched upon. Organic disease is much 
more serious. In organic cases the corre- 
spondence of the organism to the environ- 
ment is interfered with, and a dissolution 
has begun in the cell. It fails to make a 
good response to the external stimuli, be- 
cause the internal reaction is lessened. The 
organ becomes incapacitated for perfect 
work when a proportion of the cells cease 
to respond to the demands made upon them, 
and through sympathetic action the whole 
body is depleted. 

Surely here is a place for suggestion. It 
can at least be applied to those parts not 
192 



To Consciousness 

organically affected, and yet, through curi- 
osity and sympathy, adding to the general 
disturbance, and, in time becoming func- 
tionally disabled from the extra work that is 
necessary to keep up good assimilation and 
elimination, which are imperative for the 
general health. Suggestion can strengthen 
the active cells and make them more resistant 
to harmful vibrations; it can experiment in 
the training of such dormant elements as lie 
in the body to further growth and organi- 
zation, and it can easily modify the pain by 
controlling the emotions and relaxing the 
nervous tension of the body. 

Much of all this is done even now with 
little formulated knowledge of suggestive 
therapeutics by the poorly educated practi- 
tioner, whose only capital is the emotional 
teaching of the last quarter of a century, 
combined with the enthusiasm that proves to 
be, in so many cases, an irresistible vibra- 
tion when directed toward the sufferer. 

The application of suggestion is not ques- 
tioned in ordinary life. There is no mys- 
tery in giving and receiving suggestions 

x 93 



Life's Response 

about visible things. All progress and civ- 
ilization itself are built on suggestibility, and 
the power of suggestion is a response to an 
attraction that unifies, and, therefore, its 
power is universal and not personal. A 
vibration attracts the senses and arouses a 
desire; if the suggestion persists and is ac- 
cepted (for every suggestion must be ac- 
cepted, if it is to have any power over the 
life), the effort to acquire becomes equally 
potent, and is usually successful. The 
awakening of man's perceptive powers is a 
process of unfoldment which necessitates 
a better organism and a better environment, 
for it arouses an interest that must have 
an outlet. Evolution is the name science 
gives to this highest achievement of adap- 
tation, and it is, in the last analysis, a 
larger grasp on life. 

Any power that can be trusted to unfold 
the inner nature of man, and that is potent 
in its application to making a better medium 
for him to work in and through, can be 
trusted in its continuity. When we speak 
of giving suggestions to the body, there is 

194 



To Consciousness 

a sense of mystery in the words that must 
be made clear, else the argument runs into 
an absurdity, and, while the theory may be 
interesting, no effort will be made to put it 
into practice. Naturally the student will 
ask: How can he talk to the cells and ex- 
pect obedience, and how can he environ them 
with such mental matter as he desires? 
There are many living witnesses to the be- 
lief that it has been done, and the effort 
of many years of study and thought, fol- 
lowed by careful conservative experiments, 
is back of this attempt to explain the nature 
of life, and the laws under which it is guided 
and controlled. 

Language is the arbitrary vibration of the 
larynx. There is not the slightest resem- 
blance between the spoken word and the 
idea which it expresses to the listener. In 
the cosmopolitan cities of America one can 
hear eight or ten languages spoken in a 
morning's walk. The soft vowels of the 
Spaniard are used to express the same in- 
tense emotion as the guttural sounds of the 
Chinese. Take our own English: what is 

195 



Life's Response 

there in the words to call an image to the 
mind? The word man no more resembles 
the object man than does the Latin homo 
or vir, and yet it makes a mental picture 
of a man that claims attention. When we 
say bliss, we do not express the emotion 
of bliss any better than when we use the 
Sanskrit word ananda, and yet there is con- 
stant intercourse between man and man by 
means of these vibrations. Mental vibra- 
tions are even more powerful, for here the 
idea goes forth unclothed, and there is no 
danger of a wrong interpretation being 
made. The picture in the mind of the 
practitioner is alive, and vibrates directly to 
the mind of the patient and impacts the 
nervous matter of his body, and here meets 
with the internal response, which means a 
change in the activities. 

While we usually speak of the five senses, 
they are all included in touch. When a vi- 
bration touches us it is mentally placed 
where it belongs. The incoming sensation 
arouses a conscious response from the per- 
son receiving the impulse; if it associates 
196 



To Consciousness 

with his desires it quickly passes over the 
nerve tracts of the body, and makes its pres- 
ence felt. If it antagonizes his desires there 
is no avenue open for the transfer, and it is 
not entertained. Each one necessarily co- 
operates, in that a willingness is present that 
the suggestion should find lodgment, else it 
could not enter the mind. The self alone 
has the power to receive or dismiss the vi- 
brations that come; if they are of a nature 
that he objects to, and he is weak in re- 
sisting, he can put himself in a more con- 
genial environment. If the suggestion is 
desired, then, the more the subject knows 
of the law, the more he can aid in intrud- 
ing the thought and in closing the mind to 
contra-suggestions. 

In healing, the power of the practitioner 
depends in a large measure on his realiza- 
tion that suggestion is a law of life, and 
on his consciousness of the power within 
himself to express a larger degree of life by 
the vibrations which he sends forth. This 
consciousness is in no way limited by knowl- 
edge. Ofttimes the most ignorant in sci- 
197 



Life's Response 

entific law is successful through the strong 
earnest enthusiasm which acknowledges no 
limitation, and persistently goes forward, 
not knowing when defeat is close, while his 
better equipped brother, so far as education 
goes, lacks the consciousness of power that 
is such a vital factor in the work. But if 
to the consciousness can be added the under- 
standing, then the failures, outside the lim- 
its of finite physicality, will be few. 

A secondary element of power is the will- 
ingness of the patient to intelligently co- 
operate, for while he must expect results, he 
must use common sense. There are certain 
laws of health that we live under, and sug- 
gestion does not abrogate those laws. It 
recognizes sanitary conditions, exercise, 
fresh air, good food, and cheerful company. 
All these belong to the environment and are 
important. The mind of the patient is 
easily influenced by his surroundings, and 
his mind reacts on his body. Filling the 
mind with a picture of health is a pure, 
clean suggestion for the unconscious to ab- 
sorb, and to environ the cells with. If 
198 



To Consciousness 

such thoughts can find lodgment, the older 
thoughts of disability and incapacity will be 
supplanted, and the cells will be stimulated 
to new efforts. 

In no way can the relation of the phys- 
ical man to his body be so well understood 
as when he experiences the exchange of 
thought, desire, and emotion into an act 
that strengthens or depletes the body ac- 
cording to the quality of the stimulus, and 
when, in turn, the healthy and unhealthy 
action of the bodily organs induces habits 
of thoughts and desires and emotions that 
make for progress or retrogression. It 
matters little how well equipped the self 
is on all other lines if he has a body out of 
tune he cannot express harmony; and on 
the other hand, the finest physique will go 
to pieces in time if played upon by low 
thoughts, impure desires, and uncontrolled 
emotions. 

No matter how logical this argument is, 

and how beautiful the theory, if it is not 

practical it is only another ruin amid the 

thought palaces of our mental world. This 

199 



Life's Response 

theory of cell life and consciousness, with 
its response to vibrations, is a beautiful con- 
cept that rounds out man's power and 
makes him a god in embryo. Here in his 
own body is an universe in miniature, and 
it looks to him for guidance and control. 
The man who succeeds best is he who feels 
the responsibility, and who starts with the 
desire to be master of himself, for the con- 
trol of the self is a mental poise, a bal- 
ance where, the mind deciding on a course 
of action, the specialized selves work to- 
gether. When each part of living matter 
will do its best, and work in harmony with 
all the other parts, and the self is in full 
control, responsible for its intelligent grasp 
of conditions and for the obedience of the 
units, then the work will be finished. On 
the way to this achievement we are responsi- 
ble only for the effort we make; the results 
belong to the unseen forces, and, so far, 
man has not the wisdom to determine values. 
He desires, he seeks, he gets, and he pays 
only to find how mistaken he was, and he 
will continue to do this in the effort for 
200 



To Consciousness 

satisfaction, until he learns that it is not 
things he wants, but wisdom, and then, 
when he gets wisdom, he will be the master 
of intelligence. 

Many paths lead to this knowledge. All 
paths, however circuitous, reach the heights 
in time, but he who would make haste must 
not seek the easy way, nor can he stop for 
pleasure, but, day by day, he must guard 
his life and care for the less evolved lives 
depending on him for their environment. 

Having reached the conclusion that man 
should control his body intelligently, the im- 
portant question remains : What suggestions 
shall he make, and how shall he make 
them? 

Man has never improved on Nature's way, 
although he has by co-operation immensely 
quickened the results, therefore suggestion 
must not contradict, but intensify, the re- 
sponse to Nature's efforts for self-preserva- 
tion. 

The cells have an hereditary experience, 
and in times of trouble they act in accord- 
ance with instinctive intelligence born of 

201 



Life's Response 

past experience. All surgeons recognize 
the healing of wounds by " first intention." 
In these cases the healing is not complicated 
by fever, chills, nor the interference of the 
bodily functions. When the tissue is torn 
the blood rushes to the wound, flushing and 
cleansing the part. Millions of cells sacri- 
fice themselves in this work of protecting 
the body from infection. The dilator 
nerves relax the walls of the blood vessels, 
and the depressor nerve weakens the heart 
action, so that the pressure is lowered, and 
the blood, ceasing to flow in such force, 
seals the vessels and coagulates in the recess 
of the wound, and forms a barrier to the in- 
trusion of foreign matter from without, and 
to further hemorrhage. Into the coagulated 
mass the white corpuscles migrate, and are 
very active. Healthy tissue multiplies its 
cells on every side; little nerve and blood 
vessels will be thrown out from the par- 
ent stock, which are to act as a bridge and 
carry nerve impulses and pabulum through 
the devastated tissue. Then how quickly, 
after granulation sets in and the lips of the 
202 



To Consciousness 

wound come together, do the skin cells fin- 
ish the work by furnishing a perfect cov- 
ering for the injured part. 

This is Nature's way in a particular in- 
stance. Suggestion can intensify and 
quicken the response. It should begin by 
allaying the fear of the patient, for fear 
is a sensation induced by thought, and its 
physiological reaction is fever. Anxiety 
also must be controlled, as well as those 
emotions that excite the nerves. All 
nervous energy must be conserved for the 
extra demand of heart, brain, and tissue. 
When the sensations are under control Na- 
ture has a chance to converge the intel- 
ligence of such cells as are implicated, and 
of those whose help is necessary, and the 
others will carry on the detail work of the 
body without interference. When the vi- 
brations of sensation are held in check, then 
thought can pass through that plane with- 
out being deflected. The force with which 
it impacts the cells depends on the con- 
centration with which it is sent, and concen- 
tration requires a controlled mental body 
203 



Life's Response 

that reacts to a selected stimulus, and is not 
distracted from its purpose. 

As the emotions must not react harm- 
fully on the body, so must the pain of the 
body be prevented from reacting on the 
emotions. In other words, suggestion must 
inhibit pain. It is, of course, impossible to 
inhibit the pain from registering on the 
lower brain centers of the body, but it is 
quite possible to prevent the full flow of 
nervous energy to the brain, where the 
recognition lies. 

In the beginning, when the cells need help, 
pain is the message sent to the mind for in- 
struction. Sensation of some nature out 
of the ordinary is necessary to attract at- 
tention, and pain is the vibration that comes 
from the unconscious mind to the brain, and 
it bears the same relation to the need that 
the thought vibration sent by the conscious 
mind bears to the response. The process 
of communication in either direction is the 
same, and, as there is only one mind, it can 
understand in its unconscious relation as 
well as in its conscious. When pain is 
204 



To Consciousness 

felt the cause should be investigated, but 
so soon as the cause is determined the pain 
should be inhibited so far as possible, and 
the full forge of the thought be directed 
toward relieving the cause of the pain. If 
man realizes the unity of life, he will co- 
operate with the instinctive mind of the 
cells, and will evoke and intensify such 
response as will bring the best results, and 
he will avoid such suggestions as interfere. 
Continued pain would unfit the patient 
for his share of co-operation, and he would 
ally his thought power with the sensations, 
and send the uncontrolled stimulus into the 
cell organism and its mental environment. 
The ideal condition would be a linking of 
the conscious thought power of the patient 
and practitioner in controlling the situation, 
but this is usually impossible, because of 
lack of understanding of the patient, or of 
depletion of nerve energy through suffer- 
ing. The next best relation is for the pa- 
tient to become as negative as possible, and 
to agree, for the time being, to receive the 
thought waves from another's conscious 
205 



Life's Response 

mind in place of his own. There is no 
danger in this, for he need not open the 
avenue for any suggestions to enter other 
than the one he desires, so there can be no 
domination on other lines, and in this par- 
ticular case it is more in the nature of a 
service one mental self gives to another 
when that other has a burden too heavy to 
carry alone. 

Pain is a nervous impulse started by a 
response of the nuclei of the nerve cell to 
a harmful stimulation. This impulse is 
propelled forward by means of the nerve 
fibers, which extend from the cell in every 
direction. As the impulse proceeds, it 
gains force and, finally, reaches the brain in 
an impact that is recognized. Much of this 
force is due, no doubt, to the impulses gath- 
ered on the way as the vibration passes 
through the adjacent cells, so that generally 
the pain is out of proportion to the cause, 
but if the mind is absorbed in the suffering 
and encourages the reports, many unneces- 
sary complications arise that greatly retard 
the recovery. 

206 



To Consciousness 

If the waves of thought correspond to the 
soothing voice of the mother when the in- 
fant is frightened, the patient will relax and, 
like the infant, be comforted; his tired 
imagination will cease picturing the future 
in unhealthy colors, his emotions will not 
battle with his desires, but will move with 
them in quietness, and the efferent impulses 
will soon overcome the extreme tempera- 
ture of the nervous matter. 

Now, the way is open to send suggestion 
directly to the body. As the nerve impulse 
is possible only when the fibers are excited, 
so that the current may have a line of wire 
from station to station, suggestion must re- 
lax the fibers and break their connection. 
This is accomplished in part by the indirect 
suggestion sent to the conscious mind of 
the patient. The impression given of an 
intelligent understanding of the trouble, and 
a tactful clearing away the exaggerated 
fears that have increased the symptoms so 
alarmingly, relieves the mental tension and 
establishes a bond that gives confidence, 
and makes it possible to control the sensa- 
207 



Life's Response 

tions and to intrude healing suggestions to 
the body. 

The direct suggestion is to the uncon- 
scious mind and to the nuclei of the cells 
from which the fibers extend, and it must 
be of such a nature as to induce a par- 
tial inaction, for the impulse starts in the 
nerve center, and is carried from fiber to 
fiber. If the impulse is held in check, the 
fibers are quiet and cannot transmit the cur- 
rent. As it is a stimulus that excites the 
nucleus, it must be a more dominant stim- 
ulus that inhibits. When the indirect sug- 
gestion controls the thought and the direct 
suggestion the nerve impulse, with its re- 
sultant sensation, pain will be overcome 
and the attention can be directed to the 
cause of the pain. 

So far the work of healing has been 
preliminary. Obstacles have been removed 
that would have interfered with the in- 
stinctive work of the cells to repair such 
damage as has befallen their present place of 
abode. The self-preservation of life is as 
vital a part of the cell organism as it is of 
208 



To Consciousness 

man's, and the effort to live will be as 
strenuously made as anywhere in nature. 

Pain is not a necessary accompaniment of 
disease. There are other symptoms of a 
serious nature that tell the trouble, and the 
wise way is to keep them under control 
while giving suggestions that will correct 
the cause. 

If a diagnosis can be made or obtained, 
then suggestions can be intruded in detail, 
and such thoughts can be sent as will stim- 
ulate the cells to a renewed activity along 
normal lines. We all know that an organ 
or part of the body can be educated far 
above the average of the whole. This may 
be done consciously or unconsciously. The 
acrobat trains muscle and nerve until he 
has perfect control of them. This is a 
conscious effort, and we do the same un- 
consciously when one pathway through the 
body becomes closed, and, because of neces- 
sity, we open another and force the cells 
to do double work. Or, we may so neglect 
the laws of health that one organ works 
under an abnormal pressure to retain its 
209 



Life's Response 

place in the body. If we can do this be- 
cause of a determination to excel in any par- 
ticular line, or through an imposition of too 
much work in one direction, then it can be 
done for therapeutic purposes when it is 
necessary to arouse the lazy cells to a re- 
newal of activity or to inhibit them when 
too active. 

If the work is with a depleted organ, good 
food, fresh air, and plenty of water should 
be intelligently given, for this is a part of 
the physical environment of the cells that 
must not be neglected, and good food, in 
most cases where the appetite has not been 
pampered in health, means what the stomach 
craves, but intelligence always shows itself 
in moderation. With the giving should al- 
ways go the suggestion of taking and of as- 
similating for the good of the whole body. 
Lastly, suggest the proper activities to the 
different organs involved, and NEVER 
DOUBT the power to enforce obedience. 
It is the steady strong wave of the intrud- 
ing thought that is effective, a doubt de- 
flects the vibration, and many doubts are 

210 



To Consciousness 

a contra-suggestion that are very harm- 
ful. 

When the disease is obscure and no satis- 
factory diagnosis can be had, it can be put 
, into one of the two classes. The cells are 
either too active or else not active enough, 
and, with this as a datum, the suggestion 
must go primarily to the unconscious mind, 
arousing the memory of a perfect activity 
and calling it again to take control and 
send such stimulus to the cells as will meet 
with a healthy response. 

We all know the symptoms of an inactive 
liver. Many, if not all, the liver remedies 
for sale act as a direct poison to the cells 
of the liver, and their response is the act of 
self-preservation in purifying their environ- 
ment, and the reaction is one of exhaustion. 
Suggestion would appeal to the same law, 
and induce an activity for the same reason, 
but it would induce it without depleting the 
cells by overwork, and there would be no 
reactionary results. 

Inflammatory troubles are of an opposite 
character. In these cases the blood has 
211 



Life's Response 

been drawn to the organ or tissue in too 
great quantity, and the cells are overfed; 
often they gormandize to the extent of con- 
suming their own protoplasm, and the naked 
horde of cells prey on the surrounding tissue 
and involve it in the conflict. The blood 
vessels become congested, and the cells rap- 
idly multiply, some even migrating to distant 
parts and carrying the contagion. Cancer 
is the worst and most pronounced disease of 
this class. Suggestion would call on the 
dilator nerves to extend the walls of the 
blood vessels, so the blood could flow with- 
out congesting in the capillaries; it would 
gain control over the nuclei of the involved 
tissue, and quiet the too active cells; it would 
inhibit the pain to the greatest possible ex- 
tent by relaxing the nerve fiber, so the trans- 
mission of the nerve impulse would be im- 
peded, and then, remembering Nature's 
process in the healing of wounds, it would 
encourage nerve and blood vessel in the 
repair work, and stimulate the cells of flesh 
and skin in covering the part. 

Some knowledge of disease is useful and 
212 



To Consciousness 

necessary, but the old ideas of sequence and 
the fatal results under certain conditions, 
must be ignored, else the knowledge would 
handicap the consciousness of power to di- 
rect and enforce obedience of the working 
units of the body. The more one knows 
wisely the better equipped is he under any 
and all circumstances, but knowledge is not 
always wisdom, and if the knowledge leads 
to an anticipation of a regular series of 
phenomena to be overcome, then it were bet- 
ter to know little and to try only such func- 
tional cases as yield to the mental treatment 
applied exclusively to the mind. 

The final separation of man and his body 
is not always due to the irreparable dam- 
age the cells have undergone through dis- 
ease. Death is quite as often the with- 
drawal of the ego from the body. Life is 
always an effort, and when the attractions 
of life are forgotten, the union between the 
specialized bodies is weakened. The life 
forces center more and more in the finer 
bodies, and the mind turns its vibra- 
tions away from the physical. This loss 
213 



Life's Response 

of attraction causes the ego to drop the 
physical and to withdraw into the finer 
bodies. If, when man's " desire shall fail/ 9 
as we read in Ecclesiastes, the strong sug- 
gestion of duties unperformed can be in- 
truded into his mind, or if new desires of 
any nature can be aroused before " the sil- 
ver cord be loosed or the golden bowl be 
broken," we have sent a stimulus that will 
induce a response, and the ego will once 
more take up the duties and pleasures of 
earth life. In every community there are 
those who have nearly left the body, and 
who have returned because of some remem- 
bered duty towards friends or family they 
desired to complete. Suggestion can do 
much in recalling these attractions, and the 
co-operation resulting gives promise of a 
longer physical life. 

I have purposely refrained from giving 
a formula for healing. I cannot tell an- 
other the best way to express his best and 
truest convictions on any subject. The im- 
perative rule for each is to have convictions, 
and they will express themselves. Convic- 
214 



To Consciousness 

tions are the result of mental conceptions; 
when the concept is ready it is born in such 
form as will fit it for its work. In this case 
as in all others, the form suits the life and 
consciousness, and the attempt to express a 
suggestion that is alive in a borrowed for- 
mula would be as inconsistent as for one 
person to try to live the life of another. 
Each has the ability to live his own life and 
to think his own thoughts, and he expresses 
his awareness of life on any plane in his 
own way; so, while the principle of sug- 
gestion is universal, the method of applica- 
tion is personal. The consciousness of the 
power within to guide one's own life is the 
unmanifested essence that pours down and 
becomes the manifested reality for the self 
and others. 

Healing is usually associated with the 
wiping out bodily ills, but these conditions 
cannot be wiped out as sums from a slate. 
The body reflects the whole man. The 
roots of disease are in the mind, for the 
body is composed of those atoms which are 
attracted by the mind to most readily re- 

215 



Life's Response 

spond to the temperament, and while the 
man may hide, in a large measure, his 
thoughts and feelings, he cannot help them 
being expressed in the plastic material of 
the body. We must remember, however, 
that the body reflects past states of con- 
sciousness. We see in a mirror the con- 
verging of lines that have left the object, 
and the converging lines of a new image 
are not yet focused, so we may believe that 
the act which is not quite up to our highest 
ideals is but the reflection of past states of 
consciousness, the body reflecting the pres- 
ent states as functional conditions. The seri- 
ous organic diseases belong to more re- 
mote states. This being true, we have a 
large field for study in such diseases as con- 
tradict the mental and emotional life of the 
patient, and it is reasonable to infer they 
are the effect of causes set in motion dur- 
ing the past life that were not met, and that 
are necessary for the complete experience. 
Neither deformity nor lack of any of the 
physical faculties at birth can be the result 
of present causes. When the disciples ques- 

216 



To Consciousness 

tioned on this point, and asked, " Who did 
sin, this man or his parents, that he was 
born blind ? " Jesus replied, " Neither hath 
this man sinned nor his parents, but that the 
works of God should be made manifest in 
him.'' This man was the living witness of 
the Law of Continuity, that law of cause 
and effect that death of the body does not 
break. Even this case responded to the 
voice of authority. The man was ready 
not only for the physical, but the spiritual, 
sight as well, and " when the pupil is ready 
the master cometh." 

Healing is not simply an anaesthetic to 
cure bodily ills, but healing is an act of 
mighty import that strikes at the root of all 
ignorance, and ignorance is the cause of 
every pain humanity suffers from, — -mental, 
emotional, and physical, — so blinding the 
self to the pain of the body, when the deep 
causes of pain are untouched, is fatal to the 
progress of the soul. 

If the patient seeks true healing and not 
simply a better body so he can continue in 
the old ways of desire and its gratification, 
217 



Life's Response to Consciousness 

he will keep ever before himself the fact that 
nothing is insignificant; that suggestion is 
a mighty force pressing on every side, and 
the reason why some suggestions intrude 
into the mind and become a matrix for 
future development and others remain out- 
side, is solely because they are in line with 
our desires. True healing makes finer 
bodies that respond to finer vibrations, and 
the correspondence of organism to environ- 
ment is the promise of eternal life and 
knowledge. 



218 



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